COMMUNICATION AND

CONFLICT MANAGEMENT
MCC345

Group Report

Mayo and Nairns (2009) came up with some shocking statistics such as the average

time spent in front of a screen is 5 hours and 18 minutes a day. Besides that, they described it

as a “techno-trend” where 90% of children have their own television set where 60% of

children are between the ages of five to six years old. Furthermore, more than 20% have their

own personal computers and gaming console. According to TIME (2009) 8% out of 1178

American children researched were found to show evidence of pathological electronic

gaming habits that resembled addiction.

The game of year 2008; Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas or GTA encourages the

player to shoot cops, steal cars, solicit and murder hookers, crash the car, visit strip clubs and

use profanities in every sentence said Hourigan (2008) while according to Howe (1999) the

violent content in computer and video games have prompted the introduction of a bill in

Pennsylvania that would prohibit children’s access to those games. According to

Bernama.com “No TV Week for Productive Family Lifestyle” (2009), Malaysian children in

spent an average of 6 hours per day on the computer or playing computer games. Besides

that, electronic gaming was the second most popular form of home entertainment after

television.

Research for the topic would be done through primary, secondary and also desktop

research because the issue is universal, prevalent and a worrying social issue as there has

been reported deaths when the older siblings re-enacted electronic game moves on their baby

brothers or sisters.

The objective of the campaign is education. Our primary objective aims to advise

parents to supervise their children’s activities online and observe the type of computer games

that may display explicit images or depicts violent behaviours according to Norcia (2008).

Secondly, it is to promote an alternative lifestyle such as a more interactive, physical and

social lifestyle. Thirdly, it is to encourage a regulatory body that regulates the gaming

industry with the role as a watchdog and gatekeeper. Lastly, to work with the Government to

enforce the classification by creating a local censorship board and ratings that will be

reviewed yearly and implemented by 2 years.

Our target audience would be the parents, children, the Government, the gaming

industries, activist groups and gamers. The key message of the campaign is to prevent violent

behaviour and addiction developing amongst 6-12 year old children from the influence of

electronic games with the slogan: “Life is NOT Digital, Just be you” to because life is

different in reality and there no such a thing as a reset option to bring a person back to life.

To achieve the objectives, the campaign will collaborate with NGOs, Government,

and Corporations such as:

NGOs:

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Private Schools (PTA)

Parents Action Group for Education

Lions Club of Cybercare KL

FFPAM - Federation of Family Planning Associations

Majlis Belia Malaysia

Yayasan Anak Warisan Alam

E-Rham (Reproductive Health for Adolescents Module)

Government:

Pre-Schools (PTA)

Primary Schools (PTA)

Secondary Schools

Ministry of Home Affairs (MOHA)

Kementerian Kesihatan Malaysia (Ministry of Health)

Corporates:

Ronald McDonald House Charities Malaysia (RMHC Malaysia)

SONY Malaysia

Asiasoft

E-Games

Gameflier

In2 MARKETING & CONSULTING SDN BHD (WCG)

For the purpose of delivering the message to the target audience and as the main

channel, parents and children are best reachable through television broadcast and radio which

puts the highest priority on media broadcast e.g. Xfresh.fm, Hitz.fm, 8tv, NTV7 and Channel

[V]. This message will be delivered in the forms of PSAs. Programs Mass delivered

information produces mass acknowledgement of the message from the target audiences

without space for receivers to oppose the message which explained by Severin and Tankard

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(1992) that “a one sided presentation can be defended on the basis of what a two sided

information raises doubts in the minds of people unfamiliar with the opposing arguments”.

Secondly, to specifically aim at parents, print publications would be best catered for

them in the form of newspaper or parenting magazine e.g. The Star, NST, Berita Harian and

Reader’s Digest. However, to deliver the message to the 6-12 age group audience, gaming

related magazines would be the source of channel for them e.g GameAxis and PCGamer.

Furthermore, game dealers or distributor’s outlets would be a spot for campaign print

advertising as well, e.g. buntings, posters or banners which will be geared more to console

gaming. This channel also will be classified as a one sided message channel.

Thirdly to communicate and appeal to the age 6-12 childrens, the internet would be

much of a more attractive appeal for this age group as that will be their source for online

gaming which is accessible by them without assistance from their seniors. This channel will

serve as both one sided and two sided message bearer e.g social networking sites (Friendster,

Facebook, or Twitter), Yahoo and Google search engine, Gamefaqs.com, Gametrailers.com

and Ign.com.

Finally, outdoor campaigns, will be the publicity base channel and also for the

purpose of having a two-way communications with the target audience such as Family Day,

Gala Day, Children’s Day and workshops which will be embedded with the campaign’s

notion. This makes government and private schools as the channel. Besides that, we chose the

media popularized WCG also known as the World Cyber Games event that promotes healthy

gaming as a channel to promote the alternative lifestyle.

1. Operational Cost for Four Months Campaign

Research

- Needed research for the campaign - 4500MYR

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Campaign Spoke person

- Celebrity PublicRelations management - 5000MYR

Advertising

Broadcasting

Public service announcements (PSA) - Sponsored

Hitz.fm

Xfresh.fm

D.J fee for PSA announcement - 1500MYR

TV Advertising

Channel [V] - 8000MYR

NTV7 - 4500MYR

8TV - 5000MYR

Print Media

Booklets - 1000MYR

Gaming Magazines - 4500MYR

TIME Magazine - 5500MYR

Electronic Gaming - 1200MYR

Reader Digest - 3300MYR

Newspaper

News Straits Times - 500MYR

Berita Harian - 3500MYR

The Star - 4000MYR

New Media

Online advertising - 1000MYR

Banners - 1500MYR

Photography

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 - Photographing fee for every road tours including

Photographs for print media and

New media - 2000MYR

- Print out photos - 3000MYR

- Photographer fee - 3500MYR

Media Monitoring

- Key Performance Indicator (KPI) - 3500MYR

- Rating observation/surveys - 2000MYR

- Focus Group - 1500MYR

Events organizing fee with approval

- PTA - 5000MYR
- Family Day - 18,000MYR
- Gala Day - 20,000MYR
- Children’s Day - 12,000MYR
- Talks and workshops in schools - 8000MYR

2. Administrative

- Travel (around Malaysia)

Accommodation fee - 15, 000MYR

- Food - 8000MYR

- Transportation - 5000MYR

- Staff training

Man Power for exhibitions and campaign - 12, 000MYR

Extra staff - 10, 000MYR

- Equipment for road tours

Sound system and stage - 25, 000MYR

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 Office equipment - 3500MYR

- Rewards for winning participants

Trip to Disneyland for 4 people

( 3 days 2 nights) - 20, 000MYR

Two Nintendo Wii sets - 3000MYR

Cash Voucher - 6000MYR

Estimated cost: 250,

500MYR/MONTH

The estimate budget of MYR 1.2 million will be used to cover the research and

advertising for four months on different mediums such as radio, television, print media as

well as new media. Besides that, other miscellaneous cost will be for the administrative side

to cover the transportation, extra staff, equipments and miscellaneous.

Evaluation

In order to evaluate the success of the campaign, we hope to reduce violent behaviour

amongst our target audience by at least 40%, the creation of a Government body to regulate

the industry and a change catalyst in the gaming industry. Most importantly, an increase in

extra co- curricular activities in schools.

In due course, our campaign focused more in achieving the objective of the campaign

which is to introduce the alternative lifestyle that encourage the children to spend more time

with friends and family and also by doing workshop in schools, educating the children to

differentiate what they should practice what they see in games and in the reality world. By

monitoring the pre, present and post campaign, this campaign will be evaluated prior to every

other campaign that has been done in Malaysia.

In order to reach how computer games influence children between the ages of 6-12 to

the public, we will determine what would be the best strategies to be used so that they can

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effectively reach out and spread the message to the primary target audience by doing ratings,

events in road tours, talks and workshops in schools by credible spoke person.

(1423 words)

REFERENCES
American Academy of Paediatrics
http://www.aap.org/advocacy/releases/jstmtevc.htm (accessed on 12th May,
2009)

BERNAMA, 2009. “No TV Week For Productive Family Lifestyle” April 23, 2009.

http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsgeneral.php?id=406263 (accessed
May 12, 2009).

Cook, D. E., Kestenbaum, C., Honaker, L. M. & Anderson, E. R. July 26, 2000.
“Joint Statement on the Impact of Entertainment Violence on Children:
Congressional Public Health Summit” AMERICAN ACADEMY OF PEDIATRICS.

Grand Theft Auto, http://videogames.yahoo.com/news-1127826 (accessed on

21st March, 2009) Henly, N. (2000) “Using Threat as Appeals in Social
Marketing”, in M.Harker, P. Graham

and M.J. Baker (eds.) Marketing Trends in Australasia: Essays Case Studies. South
Yara: Macmillan.

Hourigan, B. (2008) The moral code of Grand Theft Auto IV, Institute of Public
Affairs, July 2008; 60, 3.

Howe, J. (1999) The great video game shoot-out, The Village Voice, May 1999;
44,18.

Imran Imtiaz Shah Yacob, 2007. “Some Asian Governments Wants To Control
Those Pesky Bloggers” April 4, 2007. Asian Sentinel

Mayo, E. and Nairns, A. (2009) Consumer Kids: How Big Business is Grooming our
Kids for Profit, Constable.

News Straits Time, 2008. “Don't let the children suffer” November 22, 2008.

http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Sunday/Focus/2407865/Article/index_
html (accessed May 12, 2009).

News Straits Time, 2009. “TV ban for kids gets support” April 23, 2009.

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http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Thursday/National/2538743/Article/ind
ex_html

Norcia, A. 2008. “The Impact of Video Games on Children”, Palo Alto Medical
Foundation.

http://www.pamf.org/preteen/parents/videogames.html (accessed May 12, 2009).

The Family Organization, www.family.org.my (accessed on 20th March, 2009)

TIME, Are Video Games Really so Bad?

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,990921-3,00.html (accessed
16th May, 2009)

Video Games, http://videogames.yahoo.com/feature/leading-retailer-claims-wii-

supply-finally-meeting-demand/1299004 (accessed on 22nd March, 2009)

W.J. Severin & J.W Tankard (1992) “Theories of Persuasion”, in Communication

Theories: Origins, Methods and Uses in the Mass Media, Longman: New York,
pp.157-161(section of fear appeals)

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