Stepping Up and Stepping Out of COVID-19: Malaysian Airline Passengers’ Travel Behaviour and Does It Impact Willingness to Pay for Carbon Offset

The COVID-19 crisis has become the most intense and long-lasting in aviation history. There is significant literature on the immediate impact of the outbreak, as well as speculation on the industry’s future evolution. This paper seeks to contribute to this discussion by examining flying patterns among Malaysian airline passengers and whether they are willing to contribute to carbon offset when flying during and post COVID-19. Specifically, the paper aims to measure the Malaysian airline passengers’ travel behavior during and after COVID-19 in Malaysia and whether the traveling behavior will impact passengers’ willingness to pay for carbon offset when flying. Many airlines recognize the importance of environmental protection. The airlines implement several environment-friendly activities related to in-flight services and wish to trigger passengers’ support and inquire about their preferences. Using an online survey, 150 respondents completed the survey as the sample for this study. The majority (77%) reported their travel behavior would change due to current cases of COVID-19 and the main reason is that COVID-19 worries them and will kill the patient if not prevented. Even though Malaysian traveling behavior has changed, they are still willing to pay for carbon offset as 69% of respondents are still willing to contribute. The findings have important implications for air transport management and decision-makers to tolerate the traveling behavior among Malaysian passengers and how they will support Sustainable Development Goals: Goal 13 (Climate Action), contributing to carbon offset.

Examining the representation of childhood obesity in Malaysian newspapers

The global focus on the COVID-19 pandemic in the last few years has seen the rapid growth of non -communicable diseases (NCD) and its risk factors in Malaysia which have inadvertently impacted young children with obesity. Campaigns on healthy eating and exercising initiated through the 10th and 11th Malaysian Plans on conventional and new media have met with some success but have only targeted adult audiences, particularly through MyHealth Portal developed by the Ministry of Health. Moreover, awareness regarding childhood obesity is still considerably low as the numbers of obese children continue to rise. The overarching objective of this study is to examine the reports on childhood obesity intervention in mainstream media, specifically online newspapers. In doing so, the study will analyse the importance of Malaysian media in creating awareness on childhood obesity among parents. Parents exercise considerable influence on their children's eating patterns and hence are the central audience demographic in this study. The study deployed a descriptive analysis of six Malaysian dailies as well as MyHealth Portal and found that English dailies are more prevalent in the communication of childhood obesity intervention, whilst Malay dailies and MyHealth Portal still need further enhancement to gain traction from the target audiences. However, the emphasis on childhood obesity intervention has become a significant feature on these mainstream media and provides opportunities for policymakers to develop guidelines to tackle this public health issue in the future.

The Role of Media in Sponsorship Decision Making During Covid-19: A Malaysian Perspective

COVID-19 has impacted not only human lives, but also business organisations. The repercussions of the pandemic on global businesses include sustaining the value of a firm that could benefit stakeholders, such as the challenge for sponsored properties to attain sponsorship through a period of financial struggles and the capacity of a sponsor to provide it. It is imperative for business-to-business (B2B) communities to evaluate criteria and risks of sponsorship to instil public trust and consequently result in value creation for firms. At the same time, the role of the media is pivotal to create visibility of this partnership and achieve set sponsorship aims. With that said, the objective of this study is to explore the role of sponsorship decision making by Malaysian organisations during the pandemic and how the media have strengthened relationship marketing between businesses and their stakeholders;by examining the determinant factors of using media as an activation in sponsorship and the criteria of using media in sponsorship. The qualitative study conducted interviews with 13 corporate communication and marketing managers in Malaysia that are involved directly with sponsorship activation. The findings highlight the sponsorship ecosystem through the Malaysian media and B2B perspectives that would guide practitioners in making strategic decisions on B2B sponsorship matters, particularly on the relational approaches and media engagement should be seen as part of good business conduct. Future recommendation of this research is to seek the perceptions of consumers on the congruence of relationship marketing through sponsor-sponsored properties collaboration in Malaysian media. © 2022, Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. All rights reserved.

Childhood obesity: Health communication perspectives of Malaysian parents during COVID-19

Childhood obesity and its associated risks in Malaysia remains a major health concern where at least one in five of children are affected. Media engagement with the public on the outbreak of Covid-19 had since overshadowed these health issues. Measures for social distancing and containment through the Movement Control Order (MCO) presented challenges for parents in making healthy food choices and dealing with unforeseen sedentary lifestyles. The study examined perceptions of parents towards health communication, how parents ensure their children abide by healthy eating habits, and how they seek information on childhood obesity intervention during this period. The positive deviance (PD) approach argues that champions of innovative ideas on maintaining good health are found within the communities rather than a change agency's prescription. The study obtained input from parents in the Klang Valley through semi-structured interviews. Thematic analysis findings show that parents from M40 and B40 communities have insufficient information on nutrition for childhood development and prioritize convenience over long-term effects due to their hectic routines and household income. Positive deviant (PD) T20 groups are found to be more efficient in managing and applying knowledge due to their higher health literacy and communication within their social groups. This outlines the gap on effective communication strategies to improve health literacy of the public.

Immersive intercultural experience for graphic communication studies through virtual reality

At Taylor’s University, Intercultural Design is a project-based module where students are exposed to different cultures of foreign countries and are required to understand the role of design in a wide cultural, political and social context. Through this experience in addition to reflective practice, conceptualizing of ideas and active experimentations, the participating graphic communication students interpret their immersion of culture subjectively and present a piece that communicates the said cultural elements to intended audiences. The present COVID-19 international travel restrictions had disrupted this knowledge acquisition process and posed limits of onsite exploration, engagement with foreign agencies and face-to-face interactions with communities and cultures. However, previous studies had posited the potential of utilizing similar approaches via virtual space, place metaphors and avatar-environment interaction. Henceforth, this paper explored Virtual Reality (VR) technology that replicated environments of foreign destinations and allowed students to map information from this perspective in order to produce a graphic design-based output. This paper intended to further examine the effectiveness of VR by comparing information and feedback of;1)participating students who had firsthand experience of foreign environment, and 2) students who only have second hand experience via VR. This paper also proposed the suitable selection of VR tools based on cost, accessibility, technological requirements and immersion satisfaction via online learning. The results achieved during the analysis is pertinent to endorse the intention towards the use of VR tools for online collaborative and student-centered learning experience for this module. © 2020 Authors.