As the“fourth power”of the political system,mass media plays an important role in the formulation and implementation of education policies. Based on the influence of the mass media on the formulation and implementation of the standardized management policies for international students in China,a coding analysis was done which investigated 477 media texts in the People’s Daily,Bei- jing News,China News Service and China Youth Daily from 1985 to 2020and found that the standardized management policy for inter- national students in China was shifting from“quantity first”to“equal attention to quality and scale”. The transformation and develop- ment were deeply influenced by the mass media. In the process of the formulation and implementation of these policies,the mass media acted more as policy propagandists,but its role in agenda setting,policy formulation and policy supervision was limited. To give full play to the influence of the mass media,it is necessary to use online media to focus on building a public opinion feedback platform.