本文以陈直事件的媒体文本为分析对象，考察传媒如何中介农民工与主流群体之间的距离，揭示其中的叙事、话语策略及其影响。研究发现，最初发布的非虚构写作以及后续大多数评论文本在农民工与主流群体之间创造了一种建立在“追求意义”之普遍人性基础上的亲近性设定，它将阶层差异收编为平等主义视阈下的身份差异，掩盖了不平等的物质面向。在亲近性设定之外，少数文本通过重新书写个体差异与阶层差异展现了不同的距离构造方式，勾画了媒体定位公众及其道德坐标的另类图谱。借鉴西尔弗斯通“适当的距离”，本文认为上述三类文本实践，即去差异化书写、对个体差异与阶层差异的重新书写，充分体现了远方他人的中介化作为一项政治、道德事业的复杂性。媒体文本道德力量和政治效能的发挥必须建立在对“附近的我们”与“远方的他人”之亲近性与差异性的不断协商与开放讨论中。

This study focuses on the media texts on Chen Zhi Event, examines the ways in which the media mediate the distance between migrant workers and the mainstream, investigates the narrative and discursive strategies employed, and assesses their implications. The study finds that the initial release of non-fiction writing and most of the subsequent commentaries create a proximity between migrant workers and the mainstream based on the universal human nature of the “quest for meaning”, which codifies class differences as symbolic identity differences in an egalitarian perspective that masks the material aspects of inequality. In addition to the dominant trend of proximity, a few texts demonstrate alternative constructions of distance by rewriting individual and class differences, outlining distinct mappings of how media positions the public and its moral coordinates. Drawing on Silverstone’s notion of “proper distance”, this study argues that these three types of textual practices mentioned above, i.e., de-differentiation, re-writing of individual and class differences, fully reflect the complexity of the mediation of distant others as a political and moral enterprise. The moral power and political efficacy of media texts must be grounded in a constant negotiation and open discussion of our proximity and difference with distant others.