HKU POP SITE releases popularity figures of Executive Councillors and people's appraisal of local news mediaBack
| Press Release on April 27, 2010 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | Latest Figures | (1) Top 5 members of Executive Council | |
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Abstract
The latest survey conducted by the Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong shows that compared to three months ago, the popularity ratings of most "top 5" non-official Executive Councillors have dropped, but only that of Ronald Arculli has fallen beyond sampling error. In terms of relative rankings, Lau Kong-wah and Cheng Yiu-tong who occupied the 3rd and 4th places last time have swapped positions, while other positions remain unchanged. The top five places in descending order are Ronald Arculli, Leung Chun-ying, Cheng Yiu-tong, Lau Kong-wah and Lau Wong-fat. As for media performance, our survey shows that 60% of Hong Kong people are satisfied with the performance of the local news media, which is record high since mid-1997, but is still lower than people's satisfaction with press freedom. Among various types of news media, people are still most satisfied with television, followed by radio. Their net satisfaction now stand at positive 66 and 60 percentage points respectively. The net satisfaction of newspapers and the internet both stand at positive 22 percentage points, while that of magazines stands at negative 44 percentage points. Compared to 6 months ago, people's satisfaction with television and radio, and their dissatisfaction with magazines, have gone up significantly. People's satisfaction with radio is now at record high since this survey series began in 1993. However, the general credibility rating of the news media has slightly dropped, after a significant increase 6 months ago. Most people think the media has given full play to press freedom, but at the same time misused or abused press freedom. Almost half believe news media have practiced self-censorship, mainly because of their hesitation to criticize the Central Government, but not so when criticizing the HKSAR Government. The figures are similar to those registered a year ago. The maximum sampling error of percentages is not more than +/-3% at 95% confidence level while that of ratings is below +/-1.6 marks. The response rate of the rating survey is 70%.
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 first stage naming survey on top 5 Executive Councillors is 1,009 successful interviews, not 1,009 x 65.3% response rate, while that of the second stage rating survey and of the survey on people's appraisal of local news media is 1,020 successful interviews, not 1,020 x 69.8% response rate. [3] The maximum sampling error of all percentages is between +/-1 and +/-3 percentage points at 95% confidence level, while the sampling error of the rating figure is below +/-1.6 marks. "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 rating not more than +/-1.6 marks and sampling error of percentages not more than +/-3% at 95% confidence level". [4] When quoting percentages of this survey, journalists should refrain from reporting decimal places, but when quoting the rating figures, one decimal place can be used, in order to match the precision level of the figures. [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. |
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Latest Figures
POP today releases on schedule via the "POP SITE" the latest popularity figures of Executive Councillors and people's appraisal of local news media. As a general practice, all figures 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 2009 year-end.
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(1) Top 5 members of Executive Council
Herewith the contact information for the latest survey on the Top 5 members of Executive Council:
The research design of our "Top 5 Executive Councillors" is similar to that of our "Top 10" series, it is explained in detail under "Survey Method" in our web page. The top councillors listed in our latest survey were all those who obtained the highest unprompted mentions in our first stage naming survey conducted in the first half of April. In that survey, respondents could name, unaided, up to 5 non-official Executive Councillors whom they knew best. Leung Chun-ying, Cheng Yiu-tong, Lau Wong-fat, Anthony Cheung, Ronald Arculli, Lau Kong-wah, Charles Lee Yeh-kwong, Laura M Cha, Lawrence Lau Juen-yee and Leong Che-hung were the ten most frequently mentioned councillors. Please refer to the relevant table in our website for the rest of the list. Those 6 who were named most frequently then entered into the second stage rating survey. During the second stage rating survey conducted in the second half of April, respondents were asked to rate each short-listed councillor in turn using a 0-100 scale. 0 indicates absolutely no support, 100 indicates absolute support, and 50 means half-half. After calculation, the bottom 1 councillor in terms of recognition rate was dropped; the remaining 5 were then ranked according to their support ratings attained to become the top 5 Executive Councillors. Recent ratings of the top 5 members of Executive Council are summarized as follows:
[8] Ratings with recognition rates not reaching top 5 in either stage of survey are not available. [9] Such changes have gone beyond the sampling errors at the 95% confidence level, meaning that they are statistically significant prima facie. However, whether numerical differences are statistically significant or not is not the same as whether they are practically useful or meaningful. The latest survey conducted in the second half of April showed that Ronald Arculli was the most popularly supported non-official Executive Councillor, attaining 55.1 marks. The 2nd rank went to Leung Chun-ying with 48.2 marks. The 3rd to 5th ranks went to Cheng Yiu-tong, Lau Kong-wah and Lau Wong-fat, with 45.2, 44.8 and 42.4 marks respectively. The mean score obtained by these top 5 non-official Executive Councillors was 47.1 marks. For this latest survey, Anthony Cheung obtained a support rating of 50.6 marks, but he was dropped due to his relatively low recognition rate. The overall ratings ranked according to results obtained over the past year are tabulated as follows:
[11] "Overall ranking" is first determined by their number of times on top 10, and then their average ratings. The overall rankings in the past year showed that five non-official Executive Councillors have been on the list for four times. Ronald Arculli, Leung Chun-ying, Cheung Yiu-tong, Lau Kong-wah and Lau Wong-fat ranked 1st to 5th place respectively. They achieved an average rating of 53.4, 47.2, 43.7, 43.4 and 40.4 marks respectively. Commentary Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, observed,"Compared to three months ago, the popularity ratings of most "top 5" non-official Executive Councillors have dropped, but only that of Ronald Arculli has fallen beyond sampling error. In terms of relative rankings, Lau Kong-wah and Cheng Yiu-tong who occupied the 3rd and 4th places last time have swapped positions, while other positions remain unchanged. The top five places in descending order are Ronald Arculli, Leung Chun-ying, Cheng Yiu-tong, Lau Kong-wah and Lau Wong-fat. It should be noted, however, that our list of "top five" only includes non-official councillors best known to the public, ranked according to their support ratings. Some of the other councillors may well have very high or low support ratings, but because they are not the most well-known councillors, they do not appear on the list by design. As for the reasons affecting the ups and downs of these popularity ratings, we leave it to our readers to form their own judgment using the detailed records displayed in the "Opinion Daily" of our POP Site." |
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(2) People's appraisal of local news media Herewith the contact information for the lateset survey on people's appraisal of local news media:
Recent figures are summarized as follows:
[14] Collapsed from a 5-point scale. [15] Such changes have gone beyond the sampling errors at the 95% confidence level, meaning that they are statistically significant prima facie. However, whether numerical differences are statistically significant or not is not the same as whether they are practically useful or meaningful. Results of latest survey showed that, on a scale of 0-10, the latest credibility rating of the Hong Kong news media in general was 6.18 marks. Moreover, 71% of the respondents were satisfied with the freedom of the press in Hong Kong, 32% 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 62% 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 40% perceived the contrary, 30% thought they had scruples when criticizing the HKSAR Government, whereas 63% thought they had scruples when criticizing the Central Government. The results of other questions such as people's main source of news and their satisfaction on individual news media are shown below:
[17] Collapsed from a 5-point scale. [18] Question was first introduced in April 2010. [19] Such changes have gone beyond the sampling errors at the 95% confidence level, meaning that they are statistically significant prima facie. However, whether numerical differences are statistically significant or not is not the same as whether they are practically useful or meaningful. Results of the survey also showed that, 85% and 69% of the respondents claimed their main source of news was television and newspaper respectively, while 51% thought the news reported by the former channel was the most trustworthy. Regarding people's appraisal of various news channels, 73% of the respondents were satisfied with the television, whereas 66% were satisfied with the radio. Comparatively speaking, people's satisfaction with the printed media and the internet was lower, as the respective satisfaction rates of the newspaper, the internet and the magazine were 41%, 35% and 9% only. All in all, the latest satisfaction rate of the above news media in general was 60%. Commentary Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, observed, "Our latest survey shows that 60% of Hong Kong people are satisfied with the performance of the local news media, which is record high since mid-1997, but is still lower than people's satisfaction with press freedom. Among various types of news media, people are still most satisfied with television, followed by radio. Their net satisfaction now stand at positive 66 and 60 percentage points respectively. The net satisfaction of newspapers and the internet both stand at positive 22 percentage points, while that of magazines stands at negative 44 percentage points. Compared to 6 months ago, people's satisfaction with television and radio, and their dissatisfaction with magazines, have gone up significantly. People's satisfaction with radio is now at record high since this survey series began in 1993. However, the general credibility rating of the news media has slightly dropped, after a significant increase 6 months ago. Most people think the media has given full play to press freedom, but at the same time misused or abused press freedom. Almost half believe news media have practiced self-censorship, mainly because of their hesitation to criticize the Central Government, but not so when criticizing the HKSAR Government. The figures are similar to those registered a year ago. As for the reasons affecting people's appraisal of the press, readers can make their own judgment after reading the list of events archived in our 'Opinion Daily' feature page in our 'POP Site'." |
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Future Release (Tentative)
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| Abstract | Latest Figures | (1) Top 5 members of Executive Council | |
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