HKU POP SITE releases survey results on people's most familiar political figuresBack

Press Release on December 4, 2008

Abstract

The Public Opinion Programme at the University of Hong Kong interviewed 1,002 Hong Kong people between November 26 and 30, 2008 by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. The survey finds that Donald Tsang, Leung Kwok-hung, Emily Lau and Wong Yuk-man are definitely the most visible political figures in Hong Kong, leaving aside people's support of them. Compared to 6 months ago, those continue to remain on the 'top 10' list include Donald Tsang, Emily Lau, Audrey Eu, Regina Ip, Martin Lee and Henry Tang. Those exited include Anson Chan, Szeto Wah, Rita Fan and James Tien, whose rankings drop 8, 19, 13 and 5 places respectively. New-comers include Leung Kwok-hung, Wong Yuk-man, Lee Cheuk-yan and Jasper Tsang, their rankings increase 9, 41, 8 and 3 places respectively, and Wong's jump of 41 places should have raised quite some eyebrows. Robert Chung, Director of POP, explains, the ups and downs of these rankings are good reflections of our changing political environment. However, it should be noted 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 down 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 sampling error of all percentages is between +/-2 and 3 percentage points at 95% confidence level, while the response rate of the survey is 67%.

Points to note:

* The address of the "HKU POP SITE" is http://hkupop.pori.hk, journalists can check out the details of the survey there.
* The sample size of this survey is 1,002 successful interviews, not 1,002 x 67.3% response rate. In the past, many media made this mistake.
* The maximum sampling error of all percentages is between +/-2 and 3 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 +/-3% at 95% confidence level".
* When quoting percentages of this survey, journalists should refrain from reporting decimal places, in order to match the precision level of the figures.
* 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 on schedule via POP Site the results of our surveys on people's most familiar political figures. This survey has been conducted for many years, but its results were only released through our publication POP Express in the past, until October 2006 when we began to release the results online. In between 1994 and 2005, our "People's most familiar political figures" surveys were conducted and released in the form of "Top 10 political figures", using the same method as our usual "Top 10" or "Top 5" series, which involved both naming and rating stages. Starting from October 2005, we decided to simplify the "Top 10 political figures" survey by just recording and analyzing the "naming" results, because we have already developed over time many rating surveys which covered the ratings of CE, Government officials, members of Legislative and Executive Councils, and so on. As for the rating part, we decided only to conduct supplementary rating surveys on those who are listed among the top 10 most popular figures but who are not covered in our other rating surveys. Take our latest survey as an example, our supplementary rating survey of Martin Lee will be conducted later this month. We will upload the results onto our POP Site as soon as they are ready. Besides, 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 which spanned over nearly 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 contact information of our latest survey. As a general practice, all figures in the latest survey have been weighted according to provisional figures obtained from the Census and Statistics Department regarding the gender-age distribution of the Hong Kong population in mid-2008:

Date of survey	Overall sample size	Response rate	Sampling error of percentages*
26-30/11/08	1,002	67.3%	+/-3%

* 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.

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:

Date of survey	17-20/4/07		22-25/10/07		28/5-2/6/08		26-30/11/08		Average ranking over the past 10 surveys^
Sample base	1,011		1,016		1,007		1,002		--
Overall response rate	62.7%		67.4%		67.2%		67.3%		--
Sampling error of percentages (at 95% confidence level)*	+/-3%		+/-3%		+/-3%		+/-3%		--
Latest finding/Rank	%	Rank	%	Rank	%	Rank	%	Rank	--
Donald Tsang	33%	1	32%	3	50%	1	40%	1	1.6
Leung Kwok-hung	11%	9	10%	11	12%	11	33%###	2	11.9
Emily Lau	10%	14	9%	13	12%	10	33%###	3	9.3
Wong Yuk-man	0%	50	1%	50	2%	45	32%	4	44.9
Audrey Eu	11%	12	12%	8	14%##	9	26%	5	10.4
Regina Ip	2%	36	33%	2	14%##	8	24%	6	24.0
Martin Lee	31%	2	30%#	4	38%	2	23%	7	2.9
Lee Cheuk-yan	7%	16	7%	16	8%	16	22%###	8	15.7
Jasper Tsang	8%	15	10%	10	11%	12	22%###	9	12.0
Henry Tang	29%	3	30%#	5	26%	5	19%	10	5.6

* "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 percentages of respondents who could name Martin Lee and Henry Tang were 30.2% and 29.6% respectively. Hence Lee ranked the 4th while Tang was placed at 5th rank.
## The percentages of respondents who could name Regina Ip and Audrey Eu were 14.3% and 14.2% respectively. Hence Ip ranked the 8th while Eu was placed at 9th rank.
### The percentages of respondents who could name Leung Kwok-hung and Emily Lau were 33.2% and 33.1% respectively. Hence Leung ranked the 2nd while Lau was placed at 3rd rank. The percentages of respondents who could name Lee Cheuk-yan and Jasper Tsang were 22.0% and 21.9% respectively. Hence Lee ranked the 8th while Tsang was placed at 9th rank.
^ The earliest of the past 10 surveys was conducted in April 13-16, 2004. 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 late-November, respondents could name, unaided, up to 10 political figures whom they knew best. Donald Tsang, Leung Kwok-hung, Emily Lau, Wong Yuk-man and Audrey Eu were the top five. The corresponding percentages of respondents who could name these figures were 40%, 33%, 33%, 32% and 26%. The 6th to 10th ranks fell to Regina Ip, Martin Lee, Lee Cheuk-yan, Jasper Tsang and Henry Tang respectively. Their corresponding recognition rates were 24%, 23%, 22%, 22% and 19%. 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.

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. 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 2007, the previous survey was conducted from May 28 to June 2, 2008 while this survey was conducted from November 26 to 30, 2008. 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.

12/11/08	The Legislative Council will investigate the Lehman Brothers minibonds affair.
24/10/08	Chief Executive calls back his decision on the means test mechanism to Old Age Allowance.
15/10/08	Donald Tsang announces his 4th Policy Address.
14/10/08	HKSAR government guarantees all bank deposits.
12/10/08	HKSAR government makes great effort to rescue financial crisis.
6/10/08	Government urges the banks to buy back mini-bonds issued by Lehman.
3/10/08	Public consultation is launched to review the Control of Obscene and Indecent Articles Ordinance.
30/9/08	Hong Kong Monetary Authority announces 5 points emergency plan to ease the credit crunch in the banking system.
29/9/08	Melamine found in chocolates.
24/9/08	Rumors panic BEA customers.
20/9/08	Hong Kong first kidney stone case due to tainted milk.
16/9/08	Melamine found in milk manufactured by 22 companies.
8/9/08	Liberal Party has a shock loss and DAB emerges as the biggest winner at LegCo election.
7/9/08	2008 Legislative Council election ends with a turnout of only 45%.
6/9/08	Newspapers report and discuss LegCo election.
16/8/08	Donald Tsang says Secretary for Civil Service Denise Yue Chung-yee do not need to step down.
15/8/08	Leung Chin-man quit his job with New World China Land.
5/8/08	Construction of the Hong Kong-Macau-Zhuhai Bridge will be able to begin by 2010 after the central government agreed to inject funds.
31/7/08	Hong Kong's Exchange Fund suffered a record investment loss of HK$35 billion in the first half year for the first time in its history.
30/7/08	The government will waive the HK$400-a-month foreign domestic helper levy for two years.
29/7/08	The SAR government and Ministry of Commerce signed Supplement V to the Hong Kong-Mainland Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA5) to allow Hong Kong enterprises greater and easier access to the mainland market.
20/7/08	The waiving of the domestic helper levy is likely to start a month early on August 1.
19/7/08	38 nominations receveid for Legislative Council election on the first day of nomination period.
16/7/08	Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam- kuen has unveiled an HK$11 billion inflation relief package.
12/7/08	Rita Lau Ng Wai-lan succeeds Frederick Ma Si-hang as the Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development.
11/7/08	Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen promises to formulate policies to ease the burdens created by inflation.
10/7/08	Hong Kong passed its first anti-racism law.
9/7/08	HK Government will invite new tenders for the development of Kai Tak cruise terminal.
1/7/08	Protesters of the annual July 1 march urging the Government's response to demands.
26/6/08	Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen makes unprecedented appearance in chamber to defend political appointees.
25/6/08	Resignation of Frederick Ma Si-hang for Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development brings rumors.
24/6/08	Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Frederick Ma Si-hang has resigned after being diagnosed with brain lesions.
20/6/08	The government unveil a HK$1 billion buyout plan to reform chicken trade.
19/6/08	Many newspaper report and discuss the closure of Tatami Hampton Hotel.
11/6/08	Bird flu virus is found in three more wet markets in Hong Kong.
10/6/08	1) Chief Executive Donald Tsang apologizes for the arrangement of political appointments. 2) Over 500 drivers go on strike for tax cut on diesel.
9/6/08	Government is uncertain of the source of bird flu virus.
7/6/08	The deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu is found in chickens at HK market.
6/6/08	Education Bureau announces that new arrangements will start in 2009-10 school year the earliest.
5/6/08	The Chief Executive's Office Chan Tak-lam says Government could have handled the deputy minister issue better.
2/6/08	The CEO of HKEC vows to review closing auction session system.
31/5/08	Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen talks about Deputy Director of Bureau and Political Assistant in Shanghai.

Commentary

Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, observed, "The purpose of studying people's most familiar figures over time is to use the ups and downs of these figures to indicate the changing political ecology. According to our latest survey, Donald Tsang, Leung Kwok-hung, Emily Lau and Wong Yuk-man are definitely the most visible political figures in Hong Kong, leaving aside people's support of them. Compared to 6 months ago, those continue to remain on the 'top 10' list include Donald Tsang, Emily Lau, Audrey Eu, Regina Ip, Martin Lee and Henry Tang. Those exited include Anson Chan, Szeto Wah, Rita Fan and James Tien, whose rankings drop 8, 19, 13 and 5 places respectively. New-comers include Leung Kwok-hung, Wong Yuk-man, Lee Cheuk-yan and Jasper Tsang, their rankings increase 9, 41, 8 and 3 places respectively, and Wong's jump of 41 places should have raised quite some eyebrows. Such ups and downs are good reflections of our changing political environment. 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 down 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 the detailed records displayed in our 'Opinion Daily'."

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 December 9, 2008, Tuesday, between 1pm and 2 pm, when the latest popularity figures of CE Donald Tsang and Principal Officials will be released.

POP will also follow the rhythm of the WorldPublicOpinion.org (WPO) to globally release the Chinese versions of WPO's press releases regularly, via our "World Public Opinion Platform" accessible through our POP Site and the "Hong Kong People's Opinion Platform" at http://www.hkpop.hk.

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.

Since January 2006, 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".

About HKUPOP

People's most familiar political figures survey

HKUPOP conducted the first "Top 10 political figures naming survey" in April 1994, in order to study people's knowledge with political figures. Same as other "Top 10" and "Top 5" series, we take it to be part of our social responsibility to conduct such surveys, not because of any political preferences. We have explained the development of this series of surveys 4 times in our press release of issued between October 24, 2006 and June 5, 2008. Today, we post it again, so that readers can refresh such development.

In April 1994, HKUPOP began our regular naming and rating surveys of "Top 10 political figures", including Hong Kong people's recognition and extent of support towards different local political figures. Because we have gradually developed over time many rating surveys which covered the ratings of CE and Principal Officials under the accountability system, the top 10 Legislative Councillors, people's most familiar non-official members of the Executive Council, the top 10 members of the HKSARG Preparatory Committee, and so on, in order to avoid duplications and to spare more resources and manpower for other survey topics, in October 2005, we decided to concentrate only on recording and analyzing the "naming" results. As for the rating part, we decided only to conduct supplementary rating surveys on those who are listed among the top 10 most popular figures but who are not covered in our other rating surveys. Besides, as different from the other "Top 10" rating series, we also 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 which spanned over nearly five years, in order to indicate the ups-and-downs of these political figures in the long run.

From the beginning to December 1999, our "Top 10 political figures" survey, the forerunner of our "most familiar political figures" survey, was conducted once every 4 months. It was then gradually changed to once every 6 months in order to match with society's development. The question wordings used in the 1994 surveys were: "Please name up to 10 politicians that you are most familiar with." From 1995 onwards, they were changed to: "Please name up to 10 political figures that you are most familiar with."

Regarding sample size, from the beginning to April 2000, the sample size was set at slightly over 500. From October 2000 onwards, it was increased to at least 1,000.

The findings of "Top 10 political figures" surveys since September 1996 were published in our newsletter POP Express. After our HKU POP Site was established in June 2000, this survey is released online today for the first time, while previous findings published in our POP Express have also been uploaded on-line in various formats.