Drink driving is one of the main causes of road accidents in Singapore. Its prevalence has urged the Singapore Government and the Singapore Traffic Police to start Anti-Drink Drive Campaign in 2007 and other measures to curb this problem. Along with their own events, the campaign uses media to send its message to the masses.
Examples of how media is used:
Television Commercial:
This advertisement uses the effect of fast visuals and close up shots to capture the frivolous act of drink driving and its negative outcomes. An advertisement shown nationwide in Singapore.
Television News:
Creates awareness amongst viewers of this campaign and what ‘Designated Driver’ means.
Online News: 11 nabbed for drink-driving in early morning operation
24 December 2011
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1173156/1/.html
Informing the citizens how the police are on their feet to catch offenders.
Newspaper: Man jailed for dangerous and drink driving in fatal accident
16 December 2011
http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_745680.html
Informing the citizens the punishment of the offence
Television Programme:
Informing the viewers why we should not drink drive. Teaches us to omit the consequences and be responsible for our safety.
Below is a chart showing the number of drink driving accidents from 2007-2011(http://www.spf.gov.sg/stats/traf2011_decrease.htm)
Effectiveness
The goal of the campaign is to convince individuals to stop this act and for others to avoid this wrongdoing. Since the campaign uses more than one type of media platform to publicize this issue. It has reached out to a significant number of citizens. Singaporeans are pretty much aware of the dangers of drink driving due to the increase in advertising efforts.
The effectiveness is strengthen by reinforcing factors as law enforcements (broadcasted via TV, radio, Internet, newspapers) grassroots activities (community groups online fosters relationships and motivates individuals) and media messages (visuals and slogans in advertisements to create impact).
The law enforcements use fear to stop us from committing this offence. Since Singaporeans are quite the ‘follow-rule’ citizen, we do not want to get into the trouble of fines and jail. Some may argue that using fear may be a problem as it causes the audience to be less susceptible and would choose to ignore the message as people do not like to be controlled.
As we can see from the chart above, that the number of drink driving accidents has a mark decrease from 2007-2011 despite the increase in car population. We can fairly say that this positive result is mainly due to the hard work of this campaign.
Conclusion
I think that how Drink Driving is presented in media is a useful way to prevent the increase of road accidents. The message delivery and method is appropriate and hence the viewers/readers can easily comprehend and catch it. The advertisements are not more than 2 minutes and the articles are short and concise. With this approach the message can be put across swiftly and accurately. The social awareness created by the media also helps because people will prevent their friends from drink driving as they know the seriousness of the offence. Backed up with statistical evidence, it is safe to say that the Anti-Drink Drive Campaign has done its job well.
