Media Discourses of Generative AI in Education: Governance Orientations in Chinese and U.S. News Reporting

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly diffusing into education systems worldwide, while governance frameworks for its classroom use remain fragmented and evolving. This temporal gap between technological diffusion and regulatory stabilization creates a pre-institutional phase in which governance orientations emerge before formal regulation consolidates. However, empirical research rarely examines how governance expectations are formed during this early stage. This study investigates how public discourse contributes to structuring early governance orientations of generative AI in education. Using a comparative corpus of mass-media reporting in China and the United States (2022–2024), the study combines corpus linguistic techniques with Discursive News Values Analysis (DNVA) to examine lexical salience, nomination practices, and visual representations in news coverage. The findings suggest divergent discursive constructions of AI governance. Chinese media predominantly frame AI integration as an institutionally coordinated modernization initiative led by policy elites, emphasizing centralized planning and systemic implementation. In contrast, U.S. media highlight teachers’ and students’ experiences, framing AI adoption as locally negotiated and accompanied by ethical debate and risk awareness. These discursive configurations represent different early governance orientations: coordinated institutional alignment versus distributed deliberative negotiation. To account for this early phase, the study conceptualizes a process of discursive governance incubation, in which governance rationalities are socially stabilized through public meaning-making before formal regulation emerges. While discourse does not determine regulatory outcomes, it shapes the cognitive and normative environments in which governance frameworks later consolidate, highlighting the role of public communication in the pre-institutional formation of technology governance pathways.