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With effective from 22 October 2007, the Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong has been relocated from Meng Wah Complex at the University of Hong Kong to 5/F, Kennedy Town Centre, 23 Belcher's Road, Kennedy Town, Hong Kong. The general line is changed to 3921-2700. The fax number, email address and website address remain unchanged.
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Results of survey conducted in early October showed that, on a scale of 0-10, the latest credibility rating of the Hong Kong news media in general was 5.90 marks. Moreover, 70% of the respondents were satisfied with the freedom of the press in Hong Kong, 27% perceived the local news media to be responsible in their reporting, 71% believed the local news media had given full play to the freedom of speech, but 68% said they had misused or abused the freedom of press. Besides, 48% of the respondents thought the local news media had practised self-censorship while 38% perceived the contrary, 35% thought they had scruples when criticizing the HKSAR Government, whereas 64% thought they had scruples when criticizing the Central Government.
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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. Our purpose is to provide readers with accurate information so that they can judge by themselves the reasons for the ups and downs of different opinion figures. When "Opinion Daily" began to operate on January 17, 2007, it only contained significant events and popularity figures of the Chief Executive over the past few months. As of today, it contains a chronology of events starting from May 1, 2006, and many poll figures registered since January 1, 2006. Readers can now check on the results of 9 different polling items compiled by POP, including the popularity of the Chief Executive, the HKSAR government, and the Secretaries of Departments under the accountability system. In near future, the content of "Opinion Daily" will continue to expand, in order to promote the science of opinion polling.
In July 2007, POP collaborated with Wisers Information Limited whereby Wisers supplies to POP since July 24 each day a record of significant events of that day, according to the research method designed by POP. These daily entries would be uploaded to the "Opinion Daily" feature page as soon as they are verified by POP, in order to provide readers with swifter and more accurate information.
In August 2007, POP began to include in its regular press releases a list of significant events which happened in between two surveys, so that readers can make their own judgment on whether these events have any effect on the ups and downs of the polling figures. This press release is no exception.
For the polling items covered in this press release, the previous survey was conducted from April 2 to 10, 2007 while the latest survey was conducted from October 2 to 5, 2007. In between these two surveys, significant events selected by counting newspaper headlines and commentaries on a daily basis using a 25% benchmark have all been listed in our "Opinion Daily". Readers can make their own judgment on what events have what impact on different polling figures. Because there were very few events relating to media performance in between two surveys, they are not carried in this press release.
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Commentary
Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, observed,
"Compared to six months ago, significantly more people are satisfied with
the degree of freedom enjoyed by our press, as the figure reaches record
high since May 2003. The number of people who said the press has been
irresponsible in their reporting continues to drop. There is not much change
in other indicators of media performance. Generally speaking, most people
said our news media have given full play to the freedom of speech, but they
also said our media have misused press freedom. Nearly half of them think
our media have practiced self-censorship. Over 60% said the media have
scruples when criticizing the Central Government, but not so with the SAR
Government. As for the reasons affecting people's appraisal of the press,
readers can make their own judgment in light of events listed in our
'Opinion Daily' feature page. However, our record shows that there were
very few events relating to media performance over the past six months. The
proverb 'no news is good news' is probably correct."
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 October 25, 2007, Thursday, between 1pm and 2pm, when the findings of our Policy Address follow-up survey will be released. Then on October 26, Friday, and October 30, 2007, Tuesday, between 1pm and 2pm, POP will release the second round District Council election survey and the latest popularity figures of CE Donald Tsang and Principal Officials respectively.
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 January 2006, we have included in our regular press releases a small educational section for the purpose of general civic education, so that we can share our experience with the general public. The subject of our education section today is "About HKUPOP".
About HKUPOP
People's appraisal of local news media
After the handover of Hong Kong in 1997, HKUPOP included people's appraisal of local news media into our tracking surveys as a credibility indicator of the media. We have explained the development of this survey in our press release of October 17, 2006 as well as April 17, 2007. Today, we post it again, so that readers can refresh such development.
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Starting from September 1997, our media appraisal surveys were conducted once every month. It was then changed to twice every month in January 1998, until May 2000 when it was changed again to three times every month. Starting from April 2006, its frequency was again changed to once every six months, in order to spare resources for other surveys.
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Our media appraisal survey firstly asks the respondents to rate the credibility of news media using these wordings: "Please use a scale of 0-10 to rate the credibility of local news media, with 10 indicating absolutely credible, 5 indicating half-half and 0 indicating absolutely not credible. How would you rate the local news media?" They are then asked how satisfied they are with the freedom of speech in Hong Kong, whether they think local news media have given full play to the freedom of speech, have misused/abused the freedom of press, have been responsible in their reporting, have practiced self-censorship, and have scruples when criticizing the HKSAR Government and Central Governments.
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Regarding sample size, from the beginning to March 2000, the sample size of the survey was set at slightly over 500. From May 2000 onwards, it was increased to at least 1,000.
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After our HKU POP Site was established in June 2000, the findings of all "local news media" surveys were released on-line starting from March 2002.
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