Patrick Usmar

Moving from making media messages to researching and teaching how best to understand them, Patrick is passionate about continually improving media literacy skills in adults and young people alike. Patrick has worked in media and communications since 1998 and has been a teaching academic at AUT University since 2013. In his early career he worked as a media planner buyer, keeping a close eye on the media landscape, changes in audience attitudes and the language of communications. As his career matured, he took these skills into innovative communication areas such as television production and public relations. His doctoral research investigates how media literacy skills empower young people to understand the media as it relates to their experience of the social world— especially those issues related to identity, power, gender, class and race inequities.