The third speakers in this session at the IAMCR 2025 conference in Singapore are Xiaoyang Lai, Xiaozhen Jiang, and Yajing Zhu, who begin by referring to a recent incident in China where a car rammed into a crowd of people. They point out that media reporting about the reasons behind this attack was edited after the fact, and are interested in why this might be the case.
This incident can be seen as a case of lone-wolf terrorism, and such cases are reported very differently in mainland and diaspora Chinese media. Chinese media tend to favour a disruption-response-restoration framing, emphasising how the incident was dealt with.
This study explored the reporting about the incident across five major Chinese-language media outlets, coding articles for their coverage approaches. Mainland Chinese mainly reported during the first week, with an administrative focus and exclusive use of official sources; Singapore media reported over several weeks and using richer reporting formats with a broader range of sources.
Chinese coverage was thus front-loaded with official sources; Singapore media followed a more long-tail strategy in its reporting. Chinese media also focussed exclusively on this as a single event, while Singapore media connected it with various other similar events in the past. Chinese media also emphasised the keyword ‘safety’ in their coverage. Chinese media never featured the video of the incident, while Singapore media dissected the recording into various sections.
These different coverage approaches therefore provide some very different framings of the incident, anchoring it differently. Chinese media remained a mouthpiece for official announcements, while Singapore media aimed to represent public opinion on the incident. This obviously reflects the very different political systems and freedoms under which these media operate. In reporting in this way, these media construct legitimacy and public knowledge.
