HKU POP SITE releases the latest findings on people's satisfaction with the freedom of the press, their appraisal of the credibility of the news media, 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 findings on people's satisfaction with the freedom of the press in Hong Kong, their appraisal of the credibility of the local 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.

Since Financial Secretary Antony Leung Kam-chung will announce his Second Budget tomorrow (March 5, Wednesday), we will release people's instant reactions towards the Budget the day after tomorrow (March 6, Thursday) at 2 pm. Then, on March 11, 2003, Tuesday, at 2 pm, the latest ratings of CE Tung Chee-hwa and Principal Officials under the accountability system will be released.

Between February 14 and 18, 2003, POP conducted a random telephone survey which successfully interviewed 1,045 Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong of age 18 or above. Results showed that 65% of the respondents were satisfied with the freedom of the press in Hong Kong, 14% were dissatisfied, while 18% said "half-half". When compared with the corresponding figures obtained in mid-November last year, no significant difference was observed. As for the credibility rating of the Hong Kong news media in general, on a scale of 0-10, the latest figure registered was 5.68 marks, representing a rebound of 0.22 mark from that of mid-November last year.

As regards the latest ratings of the most well-known political groups, the findings indicated that the top 3 on the list were Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (CTU), Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions (FTU) and Hong Kong Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood (ADPL), attaining 55.5, 54.2 and 52.1 marks correspondingly. Democratic Party (DP) and Frontier ranked 4th and 5th, with support ratings of 51.9 and 50.2 marks respectively. The 6th to the 9th ranks fell to Democratic Alliance for Betterment of Hong Kong (DAB), 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. (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 5 political groups was 52.8 marks, representing a drop of 1.7 marks from that of mid-November.

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 February. 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 12 most frequently mentioned political groups were then entered into the second stage of the survey. During that second stage survey conducted in mid-February, 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 2 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, however, 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.

Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, made the following observations on the latest findings: "Using the Legislative Council election on September 2000 as the cutting line, POP has conducted 10 rounds of rating surveys on the popularity of top 10 political groups. CTU, FTU, ADPL, DP, Frontier, DAB, LP and AFA are consistently on the list every time. Together with ASPDMC, which shows up 8 times out of 10, they are clearly the most well-known political groups. Considering that there are always one to two vacancies unfilled each time, it seems that Hong Kong people are only familiar with 8 to 9 local political groups. In terms of ranking, FTU is definitely the most popular, topping the list 8 times out of 10. CTU comes second, topping it twice. Both are labour unions. Together with ADPL which consistently comes 3rd in recent years, political groups which represent the interest of the grassroots have apparently enjoyed more support from the people."

The new poll released in the POP Site today is a random telephone survey conducted by interviewers, targeting at Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong of age 18 or above. The sample size of the survey is 1,045 respondents. At 95% confidence level, the sampling errors of the credibility rating of the news media in general and the political groups with recognition rate of 50% or above 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 further comment on the findings. Shall any person or journalist have any other questions, please email them to us at <[email protected]>. The Director of Public Opinion Programme would answer them as soon as possible. We will keep such an arrangement under constant review, suggestions most welcome. Please note that everything carried in the POP Site does not represent the stand of the University of Hong Kong. Dr Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, is responsible for everything posted herewith, except for column articles which represent the stand of their authors.