From Multimodal Framing to Audience Responses: Chinese Media’s Coverage of Intimate Partner Violence Against Women on Douyin

Intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) has long been a socially prominent issue worldwide, including in China.The research provides a valuable case to examine how Chinese media participated in shaping public perceptions of IPVAW through multimodal framing strategies on Douyin, and the extent to which audience frames responded to these multimodal frames in non-Western states.Based on Framing Theory and Gender Schema Theory, the study applied content analysis to investigate 115 relevant videos and their 1,127 comments on Douyin.The results showed that at the macro level, the IPVAW strategies of Chinese media on Douyin align with the national political guidelines, but introduce gender-based and emotional multimodal representations at the micro-operational level.On the other hand, the framing effect is reflected in the audience's structural attribution.But their predominantly negative and emotionally charged responses indicate limited profound reflection.This study contributes to the literature by extending gender schema theory into the context of multimodal intimate partner violence video framing, offering new insights into how gendered media frames influence audience emotional responses.Practically, it offers guidance for balancing individual-structural attribution types, emotional-rational narratives, and descriptive-practical information in IPVAW short videos.