As our lives go digital, the skills of storytelling, persuasion, and interpretation are more important than ever. Yet national literacy rates have tumbled over the last few years, and media studies is an endangered subject. AUT lecturer Patrick Usmar says this must change.
Today’s news breaks on TikTok before television. Algorithms quietly shape what we read, watch, and believe. War crimes are interspersed with cute cat videos. From Instagram reels to political soundbites, media is the language of everyday life, but few young people are taught how that language actually works. And at this critical time for media literacy, the subject is being quietly pushed aside in our nation’s classrooms.
Media studies was officially removed from NCEA Level 1 in 2023 as part of the NCEA Change Programme, which removed specialised subjects in an effort to make NCEA Level 1 less crowded and more foundational. Students can still study media at Levels 2 and 3, where topics such as narrative, representation, media ethics, and industry developments are explored; however, student numbers are declining. In 2024, only 6% of Year 13 students, so some 6,000 pupils nationwide, took media.
Schools also struggle to staff the subject. Recruitment challenges lead schools to prioritise core academic subjects, so subjects like media studies often fall by the wayside. The latest PPTA staff snapshot revealed that more than one-third of schools have teachers working in subjects they are not specialists in, simply due to staff shortages.
“Far too many rangatahi are missing out on the depth of knowledge and richness that subject specialist teachers bring to the classroom,” Chris Abercrombie, PPTA Te Wehengarua president, says. “One of the most tragic things is that there is a good supply of locally trained and qualified teachers here in Aotearoa New Zealand, who have left the job for better pay and conditions.”
Supporters maintain that Year 11 students may not be ready to tackle the complexities of media literacy, and that a focus on core subjects builds the skills needed to succeed later. Under this view, media isn’t a ‘soft’ subject but one that requires preparation and maturity. “It’s become clear that over the years, greater specialisation has crept into Level 1, which has led to students narrowing their options too soon,” then-Education Minister Chris Hipkins said.
Building media literacy
Patrick Usmar is a lecturer in critical media literacies at the Auckland University of Technology. He advocates for media literacy, which provides young people with essential tools for navigating the
modern world. Given that everybody uses the media, he sees the subject’s treatment as a regrettable paradox. “I have to be brutally honest. Most senior leaders and principals don’t give much support to media studies. It’s treated as a soft subject.”
He says part of the resistance comes from leaders who question the value of media-related jobs. Yet the New Zealand media industry contributes $4.8 billion to GDP annually, a not-insignificant 1%. “It might help parents to know there are over 25,000 media-related jobs in New Zealand.”
Usmar cites US media literacy expert, advocate and scholar Renee Hobbs, who noted that everything we don’t experience firsthand comes to us through the media. He says that teenagers are spending more time on social media instead of engaging in real-world hobbies and building life experiences that foster risk and personal growth. The result is that the media have a more central role in people’s lives, a level of influence that can construct a world increasingly divorced from reality.
He points to a recent AUT study that showed a long-term decline in trust in news. In 2020, 58% of New Zealanders agreed they can trust ‘most of the news most of the time’, compared to just 32% in 2025. It’s this gap between exposure and understanding that media literacy seeks to close. “People trusting the news isn’t the same as the news being trustworthy, but people are struggling to discern what is and isn’t trustworthy.”
He describes what he calls ‘earned confidence’: how anyone can have an opinion, but dealing in facts and studying the media, rather than just consuming it, builds agency and empowerment. For instance, teens often ask Usmar who the bad guys in news events are, when the answer is more nuanced. The motivation to explore the grey area in between is lower than he would like it to be.
“You hear a teen make a strong opinion, but if you poke and prod, what lies underneath?” he asks. “Not everything is black and white. I encourage teens to look further. It’s not about finding the right answers; it’s about challenging and seeking opinions. Media literacy gives us a chance to make sense of that.”
Staying safe online
Internet issues such as cyberbullying, pornography, and doxing run rampant. Whereas media literacy teaches you to read, question, and interpret media, online safety teaches you how to avoid harm while using it. Still, building media literacy skills helps youth to question agendas and engage more responsibly.
Even the most digitally savvy parents and teachers find it hard to regulate their media literacy experience, Usmar says. “Opening a book is not the same as being able to read it well. Being able to drive a car is different to knowing the road rules. Yet we hand devices to children at a very young age, and expect them to make sense of it all.”
AI is another hot topic. “You can’t pretend it’s not happening,” Usmar says. Today, some AUT assignments aim to work with students to make the best use of AI, while others are designed to sidestep its use entirely. “ChatGPT is only as good as the instructions you give it. It’s often obvious when a student submits AI-generated text.”
Curiosity is key, something AI can hinder, he says. AI’s instant answers can encourage ‘deprivation curiosity’, where students want quick solutions rather than making their own meaning. What matters is ‘interest curiosity’, which tolerates ambiguity, opening the door for experiments and investigation. Teachers shouldn’t be running around promoting AI without first knowing best practices, Usmar says, because the inquiry process is just as important as the answers themselves.
Usmar’s advice for educators is to embed media literacy in everyday learning. He encourages experiential lessons that begin with students’ own lives and experiences as a route to a deeper understanding of the complexity of the media landscape and some of the more abstract concepts. Persuasion games and storytelling exercises are simple examples. Initiatives such as Media Literacy Week and organisations like Netsafe and NAME offer valuable resources and messages. But teachers also need support and professional development to create effective lessons. After all, these issues face us all.
“You can’t fall into traps about bagging generations,” he says. “Media literacy is about interpreting media-told stories and working out their value to you. Research makes a strong case that the media is vital for social justice. It’s the responsibility of senior leaders to ensure media literacy skills are taught.”
