| Summary/Abstract |
Sudden events of crisis (‘focusing events’) trigger intense media reporting, which in turn canprompt political decision-makers to respond with an adjustment of existing policies. As such, focusing eventscan potentially lead to long-term policy change on a certain issue. This article explores the sudden and intenseperiod of air pollution in Beijing in January 2013 as a focusing event. The episode, which international mediareferred to as ‘Airpocalypse’, triggered widespread discussion and policy adjustments that can be assumed tohave accelerated the control of air pollution in China. The ‘Airpocalypse’ was not the first event of intense airpollution in Beijing, but the only one which seemingly caused lasting sociopolitical changes. The aim of this arti-cle is to explore the underlying situational factors that enabled the ‘Airpocalypse’ to be more relevant than otherevents of severe air pollution. This paper argues that a combination of historically high pollution, improvedaccess to information, increasing government willingness to address the issue, and the ability of media to moreopenly discuss air pollution created a public pressure situation to which the government was prompted torespond in a stronger way than during previous events of heavy air pollution
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