Tuesday, 20 October 2009
09:00 - 10:30
Empress Grand Hall, 3rd Floor, ECC

Michael Hertl will give an overview of the new social media and how they are being used and outline the main challenges and opportunities for Catholic communicators.

Professor Khoo will present the results of her research project on the effects of digital gaming on children and teenagers:

Please Let Me Play: Some Insights into the World of Videogames
Video games have become very much part of the daily lives of our children and teenagers. However, many who do not play games are often clueless as to why gamers spend long hours playing games, preferring to remain in the virtual environments of their game world, often to the extent of neglecting their real-world responsibilities,. How much do we understand about the effects of video gaming? Media reports on video gaming that highlight the dangers or professional gaming can often be confusing – so, are games good or bad? This talk hopes to give some insights as to why games are so attractive and addictive, and presents some recent research findings on the effects of video gaming on children, on both the risks as well as the benefits.

Keynote speaker: Michael Hertl
Michael Hertl was born in 1968 in Wiesbaden, Germany. He studied Catholic Theology and Communications Sciences and worked several years as a journalist in different media. Since 1996 he has worked for the German Conference of Catholic Bishops where he is responsible for the biweekly live transmission of the Mass on the German public television channel, ZDF and other programmes. He also was the producer of the web tv for the World Youth Day in Cologne 2005 and worked as video reporter for the Catholic News Agency Germany and Bild online. Recently he has researched at the University of Frankfurt on the subject of Catholic television and web tv.

Keynote speaker: Angeline Khoo
Angeline Khoo obtained her PhD in social psychology from the Australian National University. She served as the chairman of the Education subcommittee of the Parents Advisory Group for the internet (PAGi) for 6 years, and played a key role in the development of its training resources. She currently serves as a member in the Film Consultative Panel, and the Community Advisory Committee for under the National Internet Advisory Committee. She is also the Principal Investigator for a research project studying the positive and negative effects of digital games on children and teenagers in Singapore.