From passive consumers to critical creators: enhancing university students’ new media literacy through AI-enhanced digital multimodal composing

This study addresses the evolving demands of new media literacy (NML), which moves beyond traditional media literacy’s (ML) emphasis on passive consumption, such as accessing, analyzing, and evaluating media content, to incorporate active, critical creation of multimodal digital content. In response to the pedagogical need for approaches that foster NML capabilities, this research introduces an AI-enhanced digital multimodal composing (DMC) approach implemented during an 18-week English for Journalism course. In total, 41 undergraduates used the AI platform Youyan to create digital news videos. A mixed-methods design, combining pre/post-NML questionnaires, reflection journals, multimodal news videos, and supplementary feedback data (from the instructor and peers), not only captured significant quantitative gains across all seven NML dimensions, especially Creation, but also qualitative evidence of enhanced critical analysis, evaluation, and creative capacity. Moving beyond quantitative NML assessment, the study offers a nuanced understanding of how NML is dynamically enacted through AI-enhanced multimodal composing processes, highlighting a bidirectional link between analysis and creation. It provides evidence-based pedagogical implications that facilitate the transition from passive consumers to critical creators, equipping educators to effectively foster NML in contemporary digital environments.