HKU POP releases the latest rankings of political figuresBack
| Press Release on August 7, 2012 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| Abstract | Latest Figures | Opinion Daily | Commentary | Future Release (Tentative) | | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Abstract The Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong interviewed 1,018 Hong Kong people between July 17 and 20 by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. The survey finds that Leung Chun-ying has become the most visible political figure in Hong Kong, while Leung Kwok-hung and Wong Yuk-man rank 2nd and 3rd. Compared to 8 months ago, 7 people continue to remain on the ‘top 10’ list. Rita Fan, Alan Leong and Lee Cheuk-yan who ranked 5th, 9th and 10th last time have fallen out of the list after dropping 15, 5 and 3 places respectively to take the 20th, 14th and 13th places. They are replaced by Jasper Tsang, Carrie Lam and John Tsang who have risen 9, 30 and 5 positions respectively from the 13th, 36th and 15th places to occupy the 4th, 6th and 10th places. These ups and downs are good reflections of our changing political environment, especially the influence of the CE election and the beginning of a new government. If we would like to study long term development, then using overall rankings accumulated over five years would be more appropriate. Figures show that Donald Tsang, Henry Tang, Leung Kwok-hung, Regina Ip and Martin Lee are people’s most familiar political figures in the long run. 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, and those high on the list may not be the most supported figures. The maximum sampling error of percentages of people’s most familiar political figures is +/-4 percentage points at 95% confidence level. The response rate of this survey is 66%.
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 survey on people’s most familiar political figures, the sample size is 1,018 successful cases, not 1,018 x 65.8% response rate. In the past, many media made this mistake. [3] “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 percentages of this survey, journalists should refrain from reporting decimal places. When quoting these figures, journalists can state “sampling error of percentages not more than +/-4% at 95% confidence level”. [4] 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 the POP Site the survey results of people’s most familiar political figures. As a general practice, all the 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 2011 year-end.
Herewith the contact information of survey on people’s most familiar political figures:
[5] 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.
This survey on people’s most familiar political figures has been conducted for many years, with results initially released through our publication POP Express until October 2006 when we began to release them online. Between 1994 and 2005, the survey was conducted and released in the form of “top 10 political figures” using our usual “top 10” or “top 5” series survey design, which involved both naming and rating stages. Starting from October 2005, we simplified our “top 10 political figures” survey by just recording and analyzing the “naming” results, because we have already developed over time numerous rating surveys covering CE, government officials, members of Legislative and Executive Councils, and so on. As for the rating part, we only conduct supplementary rating surveys to cover those listed in the top 10 political figures but not covered in other rating surveys. Take our latest survey as an example, our supplementary rating survey of Donald Tsang and Henry Tang has been conducted between July 24 and August 1, and the results are already uploaded onto our POP Site. Moreover, 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 spanning over about 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 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:
[6] All error figures in the table are calculated 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. Media can state "sampling error of percentages not more than +/-4% at 95% confidence level" when quoting the above figures. The error margin of previous survey can be found at the POP Site.
[7] The sub-sample size in the survey conducted in May 2011 was 638, while that in July 2012 was 564. [8] The percentages of respondents who could name Donald Tsang and Carrie Lam were 31.4% and 30.9% respectively, so Donald Tsang ranked the 5th while Carrie Lam was placed at 6th rank. [9] The percentages of respondents who could name Regina Ip and Henry Tang were 26.9% and 26.6% respectively, so Regina Ip ranked the 7th while Henry Tang was placed at 8th rank. [10] The earliest of the past 10 surveys was conducted on October 22-25, 2007. 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 the mid-July, respondents could name, unaided, up to 10 political figures whom they knew best. Leung Chun-ying, Leung Kwok-hung and Wong Yuk-man were the top three. The corresponding percentages of respondents who could name these figures were 66%, 37% and 36%. Jasper Tsang, Donald Tsang and Carrie Lam occupied the 4th and 6th places with corresponding recognition rates of 35%, 31% and 31%. The 7th to 10th ranks fell to Regina Ip, Henry Tang, Albert Ho and John Tsang respectively. Their corresponding recognition rates were 27%, 27%, 26% and 16%. 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.
Herewith some of the results of our “people’s most familiar political figures” surveys accumulated over past 10 surveys spanning over about five years:
[11] 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. [12] The overall ranks of Wong Yan-lung and Tung Chee-hwa for the 10 surveys between April 2007 and November 2011 both stand at 20th, while those of Lee Wing-tat and Tong Ka-wah for the past 10 surveys both stand at 20th. Based on the results of the past 10 surveys, Donald Tsang has the highest overall rank with an average ranking of 1.6. Henry Tang has the 2nd highest overall rank with an average ranking of 4.6. The overall ranks of Leung Kwok-hung and Regina Ip come 3rd and 4th respectively, with average rankings of 5.0 and 6.3. The overall ranks of Martin Lee and Jasper Tsang come 5th and 6th with an average ranking of 7.3 and 8.7 respectively. The 7th to 10th overall ranks go to Audrey Eu, Anson Chan, Emily Lau and Lee Cheuk-yan, with corresponding average rankings of 9.0, 9.8, 9.8 and 11.8. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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, in order to let readers judge by themselves the reasons for the ups and downs of different opinion figures. In July 2007, POP collaborated with Wisers Information Limited whereby Wisers supplies to POP each day starting from July 24, a record of significant events of that day, according to the research method designed by POP. These daily entries would be uploaded to "Opinion Daily" as soon as they are verified by POP.
For the polling items covered in this press release, the previous survey was conducted from November 7 to 17, 2011 while this survey was conducted from July 17 to 20, 2012. 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.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Commentary Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, observed, “The purpose of our ranking of political figures is to show the changing political ecology by studying the ups and downs of people’s familiarity with these figures over time. According to our latest survey, Leung Chun-ying has become the most visible political figure in Hong Kong, while Leung Kwok-hung and Wong Yuk-man rank 2nd and 3rd. Compared to 8 months ago, 7 people continue to remain on the ‘top 10’ list. Rita Fan, Alan Leong and Lee Cheuk-yan who ranked 5th, 9th and 10th last time have fallen out of the list after dropping 15, 5 and 3 places respectively to take the 20th, 14th and 13th places. They are replaced by Jasper Tsang, Carrie Lam and John Tsang who have risen 9, 30 and 5 positions respectively from the 13th, 36th and 15th places to occupy the 4th, 6th and 10th places. These ups and downs are good reflections of our changing political environment, especially the influence of the CE election and the beginning of a new government. If we would like to study long term development, then using overall rankings accumulated over five years would be more appropriate. Figures show that Donald Tsang, Henry Tang, Leung Kwok-hung, Regina Ip and Martin Lee are people’s most familiar political figures in the long run. 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’.” | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Future Release (Tentative)
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| Abstract | Latest Figures | Opinion Daily | Commentary | Future Release (Tentative) | | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
