HKU POP SITE releases the latest results on people』s satisfaction with the freedom of the press in Hong Kong, their latest appraisal of the credibility of the news media in general, as well as the latest ratings of the most well-known political groupsBack

The Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong today releases on schedule via the "HKU POP SITE" (http://hkupop.pori.hk) the latest results on people』s satisfaction with the freedom of the press in Hong Kong, their latest appraisal of the credibility of the news media in general, as well as the latest ratings of the most well-known political groups. POP's normal practice is to release the results of our regular surveys every Tuesday at 2 pm via our POP Site, except during public holidays, each time with a forecast of the items to be released in the forthcoming week. We will review and adjust this operation regularly.

According to this schedule, the date and time of our next release will be December 10, 2002, Tuesday, at 2 pm, the latest ratings of CE Tung Chee-hwa and Principal Officials under the accountability system will be released.

According to the survey findings released today, regarding people』s satisfaction with the freedom of the press in Hong Kong, the latest figures registered in mid-November (November 13-20) showed that 62% were satisfied, 15% expressed dissatisfaction, while 19% said 「half-half」. When compared with the results obtained in mid-August, the satisfaction figure has increased by 6 percentage points, which was statistically significant. As for the credibility rating of the news media in Hong Kong in general, on a scale of 0-10, the latest figure registered in mid-November was 5.46 marks, representing a significant drop of 0.3 mark from that of mid-August, which was also a record low.

As regards the latest ratings of the most well-known political groups registered in mid-November, the top three on the list were Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions (FTU), Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (CTU) and Hong Kong Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood (ADPL), attaining 57.3, 55.8 and 54.4 marks respectively. Democratic Alliance for Betterment of Hong Kong (DAB) and Democratic Party (DP) ranked the fourth and the fifth, with support ratings of 53.3 and 51.8 marks respectively. The sixth to the ninth ranks fell to Frontier, Liberal Party (LP), Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movement in China (HKASPDMC) and April Fifth Action (AFA) correspondingly. Since the tenth-ranking political group failed to reach the 50% benchmark recognition rate, it was dropped from the list (for details, please refer to the explanations in the subsequent paragraph, as well as under "Survey Method" in our corresponding web page). The mean score obtained by the top five political groups was 54.5 marks, fairly similar to that obtained in mid-August.

The research design of our "Most well-known political groups" has been explained in detail under "Survey Method" in our corresponding web page. The top political groups listed in our latest survey were all those who obtained highest unprompted mentions in our first stage naming survey conducted in early November. In that survey, respondents could name, unaided, up to 10 political groups whom they knew best. Democratic Party (DP), Democratic Alliance for Betterment of Hong Kong (DAB), Liberal Party (LP), Frontier and Hong Kong Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood (ADPL) were mentioned most frequently. Please refer to the relevant table for the rest of the list. The twelve most frequently mentioned political groups were then entered into the second stage of the survey. During that second stage survey, respondents were asked to rate each political group in turn using a 0-100 scale. 0 indicates absolutely no support, 100 indicates absolute support, and 50 means half-half. After calculation, the bottom two political groups in terms of recognition rate were dropped, leaving behind the top 10. Finally, any group which failed to reach the 50% benchmark recognition rate was also dropped. It should be noted that because political groups are not yet legal entities in Hong Kong, such definitions are rather vague, and so-called political groups are constantly evolving. As a result, strange names may appear in the list of groups mentioned by respondents in Stage One surveys. In order to avoid personal bias, our research team will eliminate groups which fall outside the popular definition only after the first stage of the survey. To facilitate readers follow our research process step by step, the POP Site has already displayed the results of all naming surveys conducted since July 1998.

All new surveys reported in the POP Site today are random telephone surveys conducted by interviewers, targeting at Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong of age 18 or above. The sample size of all surveys is over 1,000 respondents. At 95% confidence level, the sampling errors of the credibility rating of the news media in general and the top ten political groups are 0.12 and less than plus/minus 1.8 marks respectively, while that of all percentages is less than plus/minus 3 percentage points. The meaning of 「95% confidence level」 is that if we were to repeat a certain survey 100 times, using the same questions each time but with different random samples, we would expect 95 times getting a figure within the error margins specified. Shall anyone have any question regarding the research design of the surveys published in the POP Site, members of the POP Team will be happy to answer them, but we will not be able to provide additional comments. Such an arrangement would be reviewed when more resources are available. Please note that Dr CHUNG Ting-yiu Robert, Director of Public Opinion Programme, is solely responsible for the work published in the POP Site, which does not represent the stand of the University of Hong Kong.