HKU POP releases survey on the popularity of cross-strait political figuresBack

(1) Public Opinion Programme (POP) of The University of Hong Kong has uploaded the full set of video record of the “August 17 Rally” onto the “PopCon” e-platform (http://popcon.hk). People can download the videos from the ‘Video of August 17 “Walk for Peace and Democracy” Rally Feature Page’, and do their own headcount of the Rally. Together with the video records of July 1 Rallies from 2011 to 2014 and New Year Rallies of 2013 and 2014, there are a total of 7 free sets of videos available for public consumption. Video clips at higher resolutions are also available for purchase at production cost. Details available at the feature page.

(2) To facilitate academic study and rational discussion, POP has already released for public examination some time ago via the “HKU POP Site” (http://hkupop.pori.hk) the raw data of all 54 regular rating surveys of CE CY Leung, as well as the 181 regular rating surveys of former CE Donald Tsang and 239 regular rating surveys of former CE CH Tung, along with related demographics of respondents. Please follow normal academic standards when using or citing such data. POP will soon put up a “POP Education Page” to centralize all raw data and educational material as a one-stop service.

POP conducted a double stage survey on the ranking of the top 10 political figures in Mainland China and Taiwan in August, by means of random telephone surveys conducted by real interviewers. The survey finds that compared to 5 months ago, the list of top 10 cross-strait political figures has not changed much. On the awareness level, Li Peng has re-entered the list to replace Lien Chan, making our top 10 list a 7:3 split across the two sides of the strait. In terms of support rating, among the 9 figures who continue to stay on the list, 6 of them have dropped while 3 have risen. Among them, only those of Jiang Zemin and Ma Ying-jeou have changed significantly, down by 2.9 and up by 2.0 marks respectively. Besides, the ratings of Jiang Zemin and Wen Jiabao have both dropped to record lows since they entered the list in 1997 and 2003. As for the relative rankings, Zhu Rongji, Xi Jinping, Wen Jiabao, Hu Jintao and Li Keqiang continue to rank 1st to 5th. Ma Ying-jeou goes up two places to rank 6th, Jiang Zemin remains at 7th unchanged, Lee Teng-hui goes up one place to rank 8th, Li Peng re-enters the list to rank 9th, while Chen Shui-bian remains unchanged at the bottom. It should be noted that our list of “top 10 cross-strait political figures” only includes those best known to the Hong Kong public, ranked according to their support ratings. Other political figures may have very high or low support ratings, but they are excluded from the list because they are relatively less well-known. The maximum sampling error of all rating figures is +/-2.2 marks at 95% confidence level. The response rate of the rating survey is 65%.

Points to note:

[1] The address of the “HKU POP SITE” is http://hkupop.pori.hk, journalists can check out the details of the survey there.
[2] The sample size of the first stage naming survey is 1,018 successful interviews, not 1,018 x 66.5% response rate, while the sample size of the second stage rating survey is other 1,007 successful interviews, not 1,007 x 65.1% response rate. In the past, many media made this mistake.
[3] “95% confidence level” means 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. When quoting these figures, journalists can state “sampling error of various ratings not more than +/-2.2 at 95% confidence level”. Because POP introduced “rim weighting” in 2014, during the transition period, whether changes in various figures are beyond sampling errors are based on tests using the same weighting methods. That is, to test whether the first set of figures collected in 2014 is significantly different from that of the previous survey, both sets of data are rim weighted before testing, instead of using simple computation of the published figures.
[4] Because of sampling errors in conducting the survey(s) and the rounding procedures in processing the data, the figures cannot be too precise, and the totals may not be completely accurate. Therefore, when quoting percentages of the survey(s), journalists should refrain from reporting decimal places, but when quoting the rating figures, one decimal place can be used.
[5] The data of this survey is collected by means of random telephone interviews conducted by real interviewers, not by any interactive voice system (IVS). If a research organization uses “computerized random telephone survey” to camouflage its IVS operation, it should be considered unprofessional.

POP today releases the latest findings of popularity of cross-strait political figures. From 2014, POP enhanced the previous simple weighting method based on age and gender distribution to “rim weighting” based on age, gender and education (highest level attended) distribution. The latest figures released today have been rim-weighted according to provisional figures obtained from the Census and Statistics Department regarding the gender-age distribution of the Hong Kong population in 2013 year-end and the educational attainment (highest level attended) distribution collected in the 2011 Census. Herewith the contact information for the latest survey:

[6] Calculated at 95% confidence level using full sample size. “95% confidence level” means 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.

The research design of our “Top 10 political figures of Mainland China and Taiwan” has been explained in detail under “Survey Method” in our corresponding web site. The top political figures listed in our latest survey were all those who obtained highest unprompted mentions in our first stage naming survey conducted in mid-August. In that survey, respondents could name, unaided, up to 10 political figures whom they knew best. Ma Ying-jeou, Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, Wen Jiabao and Hu Jintao were mentioned most frequently. Please refer to the relevant table for the rest of the list. The 12 most frequently mentioned political figures were then entered into the second stage of the survey conducted in late-August, during which respondents were asked to rate each political figure 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 figures in terms of recognition rate were dropped; the remaining 10 were then ranked according to their support ratings attained to become the top 10 political figures. For easy reference, the POP Site has already displayed the results of all naming surveys conducted since June 1997. Recent ratings of the top political figures in Mainland China and Taiwan are summarized as follows:

[7] All error figures in the table are calculated at 95% confidence level. “95% confidence level” means 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. Media can state "sampling error of various ratings not more than +/-2.2 at 95% confidence level" when quoting the above figures. The error margin of previous survey can be found at the POP Site. {} Number in square brackets indicates rankings.
[8] Such changes have gone beyond the sampling errors at the 95% confidence level under the same weighting method, meaning that they are statistically significant prima facie. However, whether numerical differences are statistically significant or not is not the same as whether they are practically useful or meaningful.
[9] Ratings with recognition rates not reaching top 10 in either stage of survey are not listed.

Latest survey revealed that, among the ten most well-known political figures in Mainland China and Taiwan, in terms of popularity rating, Zhu Rongji ranked first, attaining 67.5 marks. The 2nd to 5th ranks went to Xi Jinping, Wen Jiabao, Hu Jintao and Li Keqiang with respective scores of 65.3, 63.8, 60.0 and 59.9 marks. Ma Ying-jeou and Jiang Zemin occupied the 6th and 7th ranks with 53.7 and 50.0 marks correspondingly. The 8th to 10th ranks fell to Lee Teng-hui, Li Peng and Chen Shui-bian with respective scores of 38.1, 37.4 and 23.2 marks. For this latest survey, Lien Chan and Tsai Ing-wen obtained support ratings of 51.3 and 49.0 marks respectively, but they were dropped due to their relatively low recognition rates. The mean score obtained by the top 5 political figures was 63.3 marks, while that for the top 10 was 51.9 marks. As for the overall ratings ranked according to results obtained over the past 16 calendar months are tabulated as follows:

[10] “Average rating” is the average of all ratings obtained by political figures over the past 16 months.
[11] “Overall ranking” is first determined by their number of times on top 10, and then their average ratings.

The overall rankings in the past 16 months showed that nine political figures have been on the list for four times. Zhu Rongji ranked first, achieving an average rating of 69.6 marks, Wen Jiabao, Xi Jinping and Hu Jintao ranked 2nd and 4th, attaining 65.5, 64.8 and 62.5 marks correspondingly, Li Keqiang, Ma Ying-Jeou, Jiang Zemin, Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian who ranked 5th to 9th with respective scores of 59.0, 56.9, 52.7, 39.8 and 23.7 marks. Li Peng has been on the list for three times with 38.4 marks, ranked the 10th. Lien Chan has been on the list once with 53.5 marks and occupied the 11th place.

In January 2007, POP opened a feature page called “Opinion Daily” at the “POP Site”, to record significant events and selected polling figures on a day-to-day basis, in order to let readers judge by themselves the reasons for the ups and downs of different opinion figures. In July 2007, POP collaborated with Wisers Information Limited whereby Wisers supplies to POP each day starting from July 24, a record of significant events of that day, according to the research method designed by POP. These daily entries would be uploaded to “Opinion Daily” as soon as they are verified by POP.

For the polling items covered in this press release, the previous survey of some items was conducted from March 28 to April 2, 2014 while the latest survey was conducted from August 21 to 27, 2014. During this period, herewith the significant events selected from counting newspaper headlines and commentaries on a daily basis and covered by at least 25% of the local newspaper articles. Readers can make their own judgment if these significant events have any impacts to different polling figures.

Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, observed, “Compared to 5 months ago, the list of top 10 cross-strait political figures has not changed much. On the awareness level, Li Peng has re-entered the list to replace Lien Chan, making our top 10 list a 7:3 split across the two sides of the strait. In terms of support rating, among the 9 figures who continue to stay on the list, 6 of them have dropped while 3 have risen. Among them, only those of Jiang Zemin and Ma Ying-jeou have changed significantly, down by 2.9 and up by 2.0 marks respectively. Besides, the ratings of Jiang Zemin and Wen Jiabao have both dropped to record lows since they entered the list in 1997 and 2003. As for the relative rankings, Zhu Rongji, Xi Jinping, Wen Jiabao, Hu Jintao and Li Keqiang continue to rank 1st to 5th. Ma Ying-jeou goes up two places to rank 6th, Jiang Zemin remains at 7th unchanged, Lee Teng-hui goes up one place to rank 8th, Li Peng re-enters the list to rank 9th, while Chen Shui-bian remains unchanged at the bottom. It should be noted that our list of ‘top 10 cross-strait political figures’ only includes those best known to the Hong Kong public, ranked according to their support ratings. Other political figures may have very high or low support ratings, but they are excluded from the list because they are relatively less well-known. As for the reasons affecting the ups and downs of different figures, we leave it to our readers to form their own judgment using the detailed records displayed in our ‘Opinion Daily’.”

• September 10, 2014 (Wednesday) 1pm to 2 pm: Ratings of top 5 Executive Councillors