Media literacy in university education: Assessing its level, integration, and students’ perspectives

This study examined the integration of media literacy in the development of leadership at the university level. With the growing ease and prevalence of technology, the digital environment requires higher levels of media literacy to goal-orientated critical thinking and ethically sound decision-making while communicating as a responsible leader. Both concepts are vital, and though empirical research focused on developing countries, and especially Pakistan, is scarce, this research aims to determine the level of media literacy in leadership, the relationship between media literacy and leadership, and the role perceptions of the participants regarding the variables of this research. A quantitative descriptive survey research design was used. The researcher selected university-level students from disciplines of Business Education, Technology Education, Management Sciences, and Mass Communication to form the population. The sample consisted of 200 students and was selected by the non-random technique of simple random sampling. A Likert scale-based questionnaire was used as the instrument to collect the data. To assure validity of the instrument, experts reviewed it, and to assure reliability, Cronbach’s alpha was used. SPSS was used to analyze the data. Descriptive statistics involving means, standard deviations, frequencies, and percentages were used to analyze the collected data, while correlation and one way ANOVA and Independent Sample T-tests were used to determine the role of media literacy in leadership. The outcome of the analysis was that participants perceived a moderate relation of media literacy in leadership. Analyses of association revealed a weak, non-significant relationship between media and leadership literacies (r = 0.074, p > 0.05). There were no significant findings by gender, age, or shift. In contrast, there were significant findings with CGPA, meaning that students’ academic performance influenced their perceptions in this regard. Ultimately, the authors of the study concluded that, while media literacies and leadership literacies are important complementary components of leadership, integration of media literacies in leadership education is still underdeveloped. The study recommend that universities include media literacies in their leadership curricula, employ transformative methods of teaching and learning, and integrate media resources to enhance training and equip learners in preparation for leadership positions in the postmodern digital and media world.