The proposal and implementation of environmental protection strategies will gradually affect the basic industrial structure and operating methods of industrial manufacturing. At present, the competitive advantage of China's industrial manufacturing industry is gradually weakening, and the uneven regional development has exacerbated this phenomenon. In this paper, we systematically study the impact of industrial manufacturing environmental protection strategies on its competitiveness in the digital media economy environment. The environmental protection strategy of the industrial manufacturing industry is set as an impact variable. In addition, the changes in the competitiveness of the industrial manufacturing industry before and after the application of environmental protection strategies and under different implementation intensities are analyzed. Furthermore, we analyzed the mechanism by which environmental strategy directly affects the international competitiveness of manufacturing industry from the aspects of cost and demand. According to the quantitative analysis results, the comprehensive competitiveness indicators of the industrial manufacturing industry before and after the application of the environmental protection strategy were 0.57 and 0.82, which was a difference of 0,25. Therefore, the proposal and implementation of environmental protection strategies can effectively enhance the competitiveness of industrial manufacturing enterprises. However, the realization of the rapid improvement of the competitiveness of industrial manufacturing enterprises also requires the increase of R&D investment, the improvement of the utilization rate of fixed assets, the optimization of business models, and the enhancement of industrial innovation capabilities. The environmental protection strategy of the industrial manufacturing industry in the digital media economy has a positive impact on its competitiveness. There are subtle differences in the impact of different implementation of environmental protection strategies on the competitiveness of industrial manufacturing.