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Press Release on May 8, 2018

| Detailed Findings (People's Most Familiar Political Figures)

Special Announcements

1. From July 2017, apart from sampling landline numbers to conduct opinion surveys, the Public Opinion Programme (POP) of The University of Hong Kong has also added mobile numbers to the sampling frame. After three months of testing, in October 2017, POP formalized the use of mixed samples as its standard for regular opinion surveys using a landline and mobile sample ratio of 4 to 1. Starting from April 2018, POP further increased the proportion of mobile sample, which the landline and mobile sample ratio became 2 to 1. The figures released today by POP have already incorporated landline and mobile samples.

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 regular rating surveys of current CE Carrie Lam, former CEs CH Tung, Donald Tsang and CY Leung, along with related demographics of respondents. Please follow normal academic standards when using or citing such data.

Abstract

POP interviewed 1,001 Hong Kong people between April 16 and 19 by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. According to our latest survey, Carrie Lam continues to be the most visible political figure in Hong Kong. Donald Tsang ranks 2nd while Leung Chun-ying ranks 3rd. Compared to 6 months ago, 9 people remain on the "top 10" list. Starry Lee who ranked 10th last time has fallen out of the list after dropping to the 11th position. She is replaced by Paul Chan who has gone up from the 14th place to occupy the 7th place. The ups and downs within the latest list should be good reflections of our changing political environment. If we would like to focus on long term development, we can use the overall rankings accumulated over five years. Figures show that Leung Chun-ying, Carrie Lam, Leung Kwok-hung, Donald Tsang and Regina Ip are people's most familiar political figures in the long run. It should be noted, however, that our ranking of "people's most familiar political figures" is based on our surveys which requested respondents to name local political figures without prompting. This kind of familiarity measurement is not the same as prompted ratings. In other words, those high on the list may not be the most supported figures, while those lower may have a different ranking if we use a prompting method. However, those who scored best in unprompted surveys are no doubt the most well-known political figures in Hong Kong. The maximum sampling error of percentages of people's most familiar political figures is +/-4 percentage points at 95% confidence level. The response rate of this survey is 56%.

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 survey on people's most familiar political figures, the sample size is 1,001 successful cases, not 1,001 x 56.4% response rate. In the past, many media made this mistake.

[3] The maximum sampling error of percentages is +/-4 percentage points 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. When quoting these figures, journalists can state "sampling error of percentages not more than +/-4%, at 95% confidence level".

[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.

Latest Figures

POP today releases the survey results of people's most familiar political figures. From July 2017, POP enhanced the previous weighting method that has been used for quite a few years. Apart from age, gender and education, economic activity group is now also taken into account when adjusting data. The latest figures released today have been rim-weighted according to figures collected in the 2016 By-census regarding the gender-age distribution of the Hong Kong population and the 2017 educational attainment (highest level attended) distribution and economic activity status distribution obtained from the Census and Statistics Department. The mobile sample has also been rim-weighted according to the basic Public Sentiment Index (PSI) figures collected in the landline sample. Herewith the contact information for the latest survey:

[6] Errors are 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. Questions using only sub-samples would have bigger sampling error.

This survey on people's most familiar political figures has been conducted for many years, with results initially released through our publication POP Express until October 2006 when we began to release them online. Between 1994 and 2005, the survey was conducted and released in the form of "top 10 political figures" using our usual "top 10" or "top 5" series survey design, which involved both naming and rating stages. Starting from October 2005, we simplified our "top 10 political figures" survey by just recording and analyzing the "naming" results, because we have already developed over time numerous rating surveys covering CE, government officials, members of Legislative and Executive Councils, and so on. As for the rating part, we only conduct supplementary rating surveys to cover those listed in the top 10 political figures but not covered in other rating surveys. Take our latest survey as an example, our supplementary rating survey of Donald Tsang, Leung Chun-ying, Tung Chee-hwa, Leung Kwok-hung, John Tsang, Jasper Tsang and Martin Lee will be conducted later and the results will be uploaded onto our POP Site in due course. Moreover, in our presentation of findings, different from the other "top 10" rating series, we introduced rankings from 1 to 50 for "people's most familiar political figures", as well as average accumulative rankings calculated from the past 10 surveys spanning over about five years, in order to indicate the ups-and-downs of these political figures in the long run. Please refer to our POP Site for details. Herewith the result of our latest survey on "people's most familiar political figures", other rankings beyond the "Top 10" can be found in the POP Site:

* "Overall response rate" was used before September 2017, thereafter, "effective response rate" was used.

[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 percentages not more than +/-4% at 95% confidence level" when quoting the above figures. The error margin of previous survey can be found at the POP Site.

[8] The sub-sample size in October 2016 was 621, that in May 2017 was 546, that in October 2017 was 656, and that in April 2018 was 615.

[9] The earliest of the past 10 surveys was conducted during November 4 to 7, 2013. For each survey, those who ranked 50th or beyond and those not on the list are counted as 50th in our calculation of average rankings.

In our naming survey conducted in mid-April, respondents could name, unaided, up to 10 political figures whom they knew best. Carrie Lam was the top with 46% of respondents naming her. Donald Tsang, Leung Chun-ying, Tung Chee-hwa, Leung Kwok-hung, Regina Ip and Paul Chan occupied the 2nd to 7th places, with 27%, 26%, 25%, 23%, 21% and 20% of respondents naming them respectively. The 8th to 10th ranks fell to John Tsang, Jasper Tsang and Martin Lee respectively, and percentages of respondents who named them were 18%, 16% and 14%. Please refer to the relevant table for the rest of the list. For easy reference, POP Site has already displayed the results of all naming surveys conducted since March 1997.

Herewith some of the results of our "people's most familiar political figures" surveys accumulated over past 10 surveys spanning over about five years:

[10] For each survey, those who ranked 50th or beyond and those not on the list are counted as 50th in our calculation of average rankings.

Based on the results of the past 10 surveys, Leung Chun-ying has the highest overall rank with an average ranking of 1.5. The overall ranks of Carrie Lam and Leung Kwok-hung come 2nd and 3rd respectively, with average rankings of 3.3 and 3.5. The overall ranks of Donald Tsang, Regina Ip, Tung Chee-hwa and Jasper Tsang come 4th to 7th respectively, with average rankings of 4.8, 5.6, 6.1 and 6.8. The 8th to 10th overall ranks go to John Tsang, Anson Chan and Wong Yuk-man with corresponding average rankings of 8.5, 10.3 and 10.7.

Opinion Daily

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 was conducted from October 16 to 19, 2017, while this survey was conducted from April 16 to 19, 2018. In between these two surveys, 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.

Commentary

Note: The following commentary was written by Research Manager of POP, Frank Lee.

The purpose of our ranking of political figures is to show the changing political ecology by studying the ups and downs of people's familiarity with these figures over time. According to our latest survey, Carrie Lam continues to be the most visible political figure in Hong Kong. Donald Tsang ranks 2nd while Leung Chun-ying ranks 3rd. Compared to 6 months ago, 9 people remain on the "top 10" list. Starry Lee who ranked 10th last time has fallen out of the list after dropping to the 11th position. She is replaced by Paul Chan who has gone up from the 14th place to occupy the 7th place. The ups and downs within the latest list should be good reflections of our changing political environment. If we would like to focus on long term development, we can use the overall rankings accumulated over five years. Figures show that Leung Chun-ying, Carrie Lam, Leung Kwok-hung, Donald Tsang and Regina Ip are people's most familiar political figures in the long run. It should be noted, however, that our ranking of "people's most familiar political figures" is based on our surveys which requested respondents to name local political figures without prompting. This kind of familiarity measurement is not the same as prompted ratings. In other words, those high on the list may not be the most supported figures, while those lower may have a different ranking if we use a prompting method. However, those who scored best in unprompted surveys are no doubt the most well-known political figures in Hong Kong. As for the reasons affecting the ups and downs of these rankings, we leave it to our readers to form their own judgment using detailed records displayed in our "Opinion Daily".

Future Release (Tentative)

May 15, 2018 (Tuesday) 12pm to 2pm: Popularity of CE and Principal Officials

No. of hits since Jun 3, 2000: 80,987,421

No. of hits since Jan 1, 2018: 125,473

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Everything carried in this website 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 and messages posted at the opinion platforms. Any responsibility, legal and otherwise, arising from any such item shall vest entirely with its author. The intellectual property of all information contained in this website, including questionnaire design and research reports, originally belongs to HKU POP unless specified otherwise. HKU POP opens their copyright to the world via this website, but would request all users to acknowledge their source properly.

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Last update :  26/6/2019