A film review which used the racially-charged N word five times has been removed from the website of entertainment magazine Rip It Up.

N****r is widely accepted as taboo due to its history as a racial slur.

Many readers took to social media in outrage and described the review as "racist", and urged it to be pulled down.

Andrew Johnstone, the author of the piece and also the magazine's editor, said he wasn't racist, and actually wanted to create a conversation about race.

The magazine's publisher Grant Hislop apologised.

But AUT communications lecturer Richard Pamatatau said only the population group who has some ownership of the word should use it.

Pamatatau argues the terrible history of the word means that other cultural groups don't have the right to use it, and Johnstone's the use of it points to wider ignorance and "a lack of cultural understanding, a lack of awareness on how certain words are used, and how privileged groups think they can take hold of something and use it."

"But points to Rip It Up for removing it once they recognised that it was dumb and offensive," Pamatatau said.

The reviewed movie was Dope, which has a rating of 7.5 starts out of 10 on IMDb, where it is classified as a crime comedy-drama.

In the review, Johnstone wrote: "Secondly, and most importantly, what is a N****r? According to popular culture, a N****r likes bling and deals drugs, is armed and dangerous and usually drives some sort of ostentatious vehicle with rap music blaring from the massive speakers set in the doors.

"Actually, a N****r is just like a white person: a range of personalities and temperaments that transcend stereotypes, a point that film makes over and over."

Rip It Up was founded in 1977 as a music paper. Satellite Media sold the magazine to Hislop's Hark Entertainment in 2013, who then merged it with free entertainment weekly Groove Guide.