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The survey conducted in early January revealed that, on a
scale of 0-10, the freedoms of "religious belief" and
"entering or leaving Hong Kong" scored the highest ratings with
8.66 and 8.54 marks, followed by freedoms to engage in "academic
research" and "artistic and literary creation", attaining
8.09 and 8.00 marks correspondingly. Freedoms of "procession and
demonstration", "speech", "publication" and
"press" formed the next tier, with respective scores of 7.71,
7.68, 7.66 and 7.63 marks. Finally, the freedom of "association"
and to "strike" attained 7.41 and 6.83 marks correspondingly.
Commentary
Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, observed, "Nine out of 10 subjective freedom indicators have registered an upward move over the past three months, meaning that people are feeling good in this aspect. 'Freedom of press', 'freedom of speech', 'freedom of publication', 'freedom of procession and demonstration' and 'freedom of association' all climbed sharply, with the exception of 'freedom of publication', they are all at record high since the handover. Together with 'freedom to strike' at the bottom of the ladder, 5 out of 10 indicators are now at record high. In terms of relative ranking, the 10 indicators can be roughly clustered into 4 grades. The top grade includes 'freedom of religious belief' and 'freedom to enter or leave Hong Kong', at over 8.5 marks. The second grade includes 'freedom to engage in academic research' and 'freedom to engage in artistic and literary creation', at about 8.0 marks. Then 'freedom of procession and demonstration', 'freedom of speech', 'freedom of publication', 'freedom of press' and 'freedom of association', all around 7.5 marks. 'Freedom to strike' comes last, with nearly 7.0 marks. This structure has become obvious since 2005."
News about POP
POP's normal practice is to release the results of our regular surveys every Tuesday afternoon via our POP Site, except during public holidays, each time with a forecast of the items to be released in the next 7 days. According to schedule, our next release of regular survey findings will be January 24, 2006, Tuesday, between 1pm to 2pm, when the latest popularity figures of CE Donald Tsang and HKSAR Government will be released.
Our general practice is to answer all questions on the research design of the surveys published in the POP Site as soon as we receive them, but we will not further comment on the findings. We welcome questions for follow-up purpose, please email them to us at <[email protected]>. 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 POP, is responsible for everything posted herewith, except for column articles which represent the stand of their authors.
Starting from this month, we have included a small educational section in our regular press release for the purpose of general civic education, the content of which was based on previous questions and comments we have received from the public. The subject of our education section today is still "FAQs of Opinion Research".
Some FAQs of Opinion Research
Q: What is the difference between "subjective indictors" and "objective indicators"?
A: "Subjective indicators" measure people's feeling of how good or how bad the situation is, while "objective indicators" usually refers to hard facts and figures. In measuring press freedom, for example, objective facts may include how many newspapers a society has, but that alone may not indicate how much press freedom people feel they have, especially if the newspapers are political censored. Likewise, people may feel good even if there are only a few papers, but every one of them enjoys perfect freedom and takes on different political stands.
Q: Why are POP's subjective indicators measured by a 0-10 scale instead of 0-100?
A: It's a matter of choice, but our general practice is to measure the image of organization, groups and figures using a 0-100 scale, and to measure intangible concepts using 0-10.
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