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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 8.64 and 8.56 marks, followed by freedoms to engage in "academic research" and "artistic and literary creation", attaining 8.08 and 8.00 marks correspondingly. Freedoms of "procession and demonstration", "speech", "publication" and "press" formed the next tier, with respective scores of 7.48, 7.46, 7.46 and 7.40 marks. Finally, the freedoms of "association" and to "strike" attained 7.21 and 6.92 marks correspondingly.
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Commentary
Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, observed, "Compared to 6 months ago, our latest survey shows that all 10 subjective freedom indicators with the exception of 'freedom to strike' have dropped, most noticeably for the freedoms of 'speech' and 'association'. If we use a longer perspective, then 7 out of 10 indicators which climbed to record high in 2006 since the survey started after the handover have gone back to the level registered at the end of 2005. This probably also reflects the public mood in general. The freedom to 'strike', however, has climbed to record high even though it is still at the bottom of the list. In terms of relative ranking, the freedoms of 'religious belief' and 'entering or leaving Hong Kong' continue to cluster at the top, with over 8.5 marks. The freedoms to engage in 'academic research' and 'artistic and literary creation' form the second tier, with over 8.0 marks. The freedoms of 'procession and demonstration', 'speech', 'publication', 'press' and 'association' cluster to form the third tier, with about 7.5 marks. The freedom to 'strike', although reaching record high this time, continues to form a group of its own at the bottom of the list, with less than 7.0 marks."
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 30, 2007, 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 . 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.
For the whole of last year, we have included in our regular press releases a small educational section for the purpose of sharing our research experience with the readers and the general public, and the subject of our education section today is "About HKUPOP". In the near future, we will keep on stepping up our effort in promoting general civic education to enhance our POP Site accordingly.
About HKUPOP
Subjective "freedom indicators" surveys
Social indicator survey is an important way for the general public to monitor a society's development. HKUPOP first conducted such surveys around the handover of Hong Kong in 1997, in order to monitor the new development of Hong Kong society. Regarding the development of our surveys on "social indicators" and "rule of law indicators", we have explained them in our press release of September 5, 2006. Today, we concentrate on the development of "freedom indicators" survey. In our research domain, "freedom indicators" comprises 10 main indicators, namely, "freedom of speech", "freedom of press", "freedom of publication", "freedom of procession and demonstration", "freedom of association", "freedom to strike", "freedom to enter or leave Hong Kong", "freedom to engage in academic research", "freedom to engage in artistic and literary creation" and "freedom of religious belief". The development of these surveys is as follows:
- Between August and November 1997, our surveys on freedom indicators were conducted once a month. It was reduced to once every two months after that. In October 2000, it was further reduced to once every three months. Starting from January 2006, "freedom indicators" are surveyed once every six months to cope with the changing social conditions.
- For the "freedom indicators" surveys, the question wordings used in the questionnaire are "Please use 0 - 10 to evaluate the extent of the freedom of XX in Hong Kong. 10 indicates absolute freedom, 0 indicates absolute lack of freedom, 5 indicates half-half. What do you think?"
- Regarding the sample size, between August 1997 and March 2000, the sample size of all surveys was set at slightly over 500. Since May 2000, it was increased to at least 1,000.
- The findings of our early "freedom indicators" surveys conducted between August 1997 and August 1999 were published in our newsletter POP Express. After our HKU POP Site was established in June 2000, such findings were released online since February 2002 while all previous findings published in our POP Express were also uploaded online in various formats.
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