OP BENTENG: MEDIA PLANNING BY THE NATIONAL TASK FORCE OF MALAYSIA IN CREATING PEOPLE AWARENESS INERADICATING CRIME

Abstract

The Government of Malaysia established the National Task Force (NTF) led by the Malaysian Armed Forces in collaboration with other enforcement agencies as an effort to restrain various threats and crimes especially non-traditional security threats which can threaten national security. Nineteen agencies join forces in a joint operation named,OP BENTENG (Benteng Operation), at once realizing a comprehensive defence approach pertahanan menyeluruh (HANRUH, or total defence) which has been introduced by the government earlier on. The objective of this study is to explain the organisational roles of NTF, clarify the implementation and media planning in creating awareness among citizens to eradicate crime and analyse the effectiveness of the media planning in OP BENTENG. Bibliographic study, document analysis, interviews, survey and observation were employed in obtaining and analysing the data. Results of the study show that there are constructive efforts and approaches by the National Task Force in constructing awareness of the people to be together with the government in eradicating security threats, be they traditional or non-traditionalthreat.