《Voices from the Hall – Should Citizens Support LegCo Passing the Political Reform Proposal?》Back

“Voices from the Hall – Should citizens support LegCo passing the political reform proposal?” was jointly organized by Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) and Public Opinion Programme, the University of Hong Kong (HKUPOP). It aimed at encouraging the public to deliberate on the issue whether citizens should support LegCo passing the political reform proposal through holding the forum. The concept of this activity is based on the idea of “Deliberative Polling” created by the Stanford University in the US. The participants listened to both affirmative and negative opinions from respective guests, and were given the opportunity to pose questions to guests on the spot. The organizer would then analyze the change in public opinions collected before and after the debate. For the background information of Stanford University’s “Deliberative Polling”, please refer to the Deliberative Polling Page.

This activity was divided into two parts, which included a public opinion survey with a representative sample of no less than 1,000 citizens, and a debate entitled “Voices from the Hall” attended by around 200 people. For the details and results of the public sample, please access the page here.

Research Team Members

Director	:	CHUNG Ting-Yiu Robert and PANG Ka-Lai Karie
Research Manager	:	Frank Wai-kin Lee
Data Analysts	:	Edward Chit-fai Tai, Alex Ka-wai Huang, Alan Chi-phone Yum, Jazz Ma, Patrick Kwok-kuen Cheung, Kin Wong, Dicky Kwan-wai Wong
Other Team Members	:	Winnie Wing-yi Lee, Joyce Wai-man Chan, Jasmine Kin-wing Li, Kenneth Ka-shu Chan, Stanley Cho-leung Chu, Jeff Siu-Him Cheung, Carmen Ka-Man Law
Other Support	:	Shirry Tsz-hin Heung, Venus Hiu-to Chan, Winky Chia, Koey Ka-wai Kong, Alex Ho-ning Sit

Details of the forum

Details of the “Voices from the Hall” are as follow:

Topic：Should citizens support LegCo passing the political reform proposal?
Date：14 June 2015 (Sunday)
Time：10am to 1pm
Venue：LT V322, Jockey Club Innovation Tower, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Guest：	Starry Wai-king, Lee (Chairperson, Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong)
	Alan Kah-kit, Leong (Party Leader, Civic Party)
	James Pei-Chun, Tien（Honorary chairperson, the Liberal Party）
	Emily Wai-hing, Lau (Chairperson, the Democratic Party)
	Priscilla Mei-fun, Leung (Legislative Councilor, Business and Professionals Alliance for Hong Kong)
	Charles Peter, Mok (Legislative Councilor, Professional Commons)

Rundown：	08:45-10:00　Registration
	10:00-12:00　Debate
	12:00-12:05　Participants to fill in questionnaires
	12:30-12:45　Debate
	12:50-13:00　Feedback from participants

Transport：Apart from participants who went to the venue by themselves, shuttle buses from the venue to Kowloon Tong, Admiralty, Tsuen Wan, North Point and Tai Po were also provided by the organizer.
Note：Each participant will obtain HKD$100 as a token of appreciation of their attendance.

Preparation work before the Forum

The Public Opinion Programme officially started the invitation process 1 month before the Forum. In the first round of calls, 418 citizens showed interest to attend the activity. The calls were made according to the interviewees’ age group (i.e. 18 to 29, 30 to 49 and 50 or above) and their self-claimed social strata (summarized into upper, middle and lower class) to ensure the representativeness of the participants. Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) then mailed or emailed the invitation letter for the debate, the first round survey (Chinese PDF available only) and the background information of the political reform to each participant. The Public Opinion Programme then conducted the final confirmation one week before the debate, and a confirmed list of 323 people who would attend the debate was finalized on 12 June 2015.

In accordance with this activity, the Public Opinion Programme has launched a “POP App” for smartphone users, and constructed a feature page for “Voices from the Hall” at PopCon (http://popcon.hk) to collect opinions from netizens through online surveys and forums. People can now download the App from Google Play or iOS App Store, or submit their opinion to PopCon directly.

On the date of the debate, the organizer asked each participant to arrive at the venue by 9:15am and hand in the completed first round survey questionnaire. During the group discussion in the middle of the debate, the organizer asks each participant to fill in the second round survey questionnaire, which has the exact same content with the first one. The aim is to analyze the change in citizens’ opinion before and after the debate. The survey is jointly designed by the Public Opinion Programme and Radio Television Hong Kong. All the operations, data collection and analysis are done independently by the Public Opinion Programme without the interference of any other party. The survey questions are as follows:

Q1. Taking the overall society into consideration, do you think Hong Kong citizens should support passing the political reform proposal by LegCo?
Q2. In your personal opinion, to what extent do you support or oppose passing the political reform proposal by LegCo?
Q3. In your opinion, the chance of passing the political reform proposal in LegCo is:
Q4. If the LegCo vetos the political reform proposal in the end, who should bear the greatest responsibility?

Research Results

A total of 188 citizens attended the debate on that day. 184 of them completed and submitted the first and second round survey questionnaires. The Public Opinion Programme conducted the analysis based on the 184 people and announced the research results on the spot.

Research powerpoint(1)(Chinese PDF available only)
Research powerpoint(2)(Chinese PDF available only)
Download original data: Results of participants of “Voices From the Hall –Should citizens support LegCo passing the political reform proposal?” (To be uploaded later)

Other Matters

Radio Television Hong Kong did a live broadcast of the “Voices from the Hall” forum at Radio 1 and simultaneously a live steaming at RTHK TV 32 and its online broadcast station on that day. Besides, Radio Television Hong Kong has uploaded the clip of the entire debate onto the website, citizens can watch the archive at the following links: