The Public Opinion Programme (POP) was established in June 1991 to collect and study public opinion on topics which could be of interest to academics, journalists, policy-makers, and the general public. POP was at first under the Social Sciences Research Centre, a unit under the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Hong Kong, it was transferred to the Journalism and Media Studies Centre in the University of Hong Kong in May 2000. In January 2002, it was transferred back to the Faculty of Social Sciences in the University of Hong Kong till now. Since its establishment, POP has been providing quality survey services to a wide range of public and private organizations, on the condition that they would allow the POP Team to design and conduct the research independently, and to bear the final responsibilities. POP also hopes that the results will be open for public consumption some time in future.
In December 2008, the Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority (TELA) commissioned POP to conduct this "Public Opinion Survey for the Review of Control of Obscene and Indecent Articles Ordinance". Target respondents of the study were Cantonese-speaking population of Hong Kong of age 15 or above. The main objective of the survey was to gauge Hong Kong people's knowledge of and opinion towards the review of the Control of Obscene and Indecent Articles Ordinance (COIAO). This survey was part of the public consultation underway.
The research instrument used in this study was designed by the POP Team after consulting TELA, while both POP and TELA had equal say in the final instrument. Fieldwork operations, data collection and data analysis were conducted independently by the POP Team, without interference from any outside party. In other words, POP was given full autonomy to design and conduct the survey, and POP would take full responsibility for all the findings reported herewith.
