Since its establishment on December 16, the Public Opinion Poll
Center, attached to Hunan Provincial Statistics Bureau, has been
extremely busy, with all six staff members having to work
weekends.
The center was set up to solicit public opinion and provide
feedback for Party and government decision-makers. Besides some
self-designed research, most will be commissioned by
government.
It has completed two polls so far: one on the impact of the rise
in interest rates on urban families' lives; the other on what
people think of the provincial government's "eight commitments,"
which include increasing employment and reemployment, and
compensation and resettlement.
The latter was an evaluation that used 46 indicators to measure
the perceived efficiency and sincerity of government, contracted by
the provincial government itself.
The center adopts a CATI (computer-assisted telephone interview)
method and all interviewers are trained college students. They read
on-screen questions to interviewees over the phone and input
responses directly into their computers.
Selection of interviewees is by random sampling, and supervisors
monitor operations from a small glass booth to avoid falsification
of data.
In the "eight commitments" poll, interviewers made 1,558 phone
calls and, excluding wrong numbers, busy lines, no answers and
refusals to take part, 843 were responsive.
The CATI system is a popular method for its speed and accuracy,
while using the Provincial Statistics Bureau's database of
telephone numbers and demographic information gives additional
reliability and credibility.
"Feedback from the 'eight commitments' poll was reported
directly to decision-makers, which resulted in three workgroups
being sent to rural areas to improve their working styles," said
Liang Naiwen, the center's deputy director.
At present, several polls are being conducted, on issues such as
public transportation and water supply in Changsha City, and public
opinions before and after?Hunan Provincial?People's
Congress?and?Hunan Provincial People's Political
Consultative Conference?sessions.
The mayor of Changsha City said it will conduct regular public
opinion polls on all public utilities and make improvements
accordingly.
Hunan Provincial People's Congress is also discussing ways to
select topics for investigation and to present findings, Wang
Jiong, director of the provincial legislature' Information Center,
told China Newsweek, and may establish long-term
cooperation with the poll center.
The center already has a full schedule for the first quarter of
this year. "We set up such a center to meet the needs of government
departments. It is a symbol of informed government and democracy,"
said Liang Naiwen. The Public Opinion Poll Center is publicly
funded and not-for-profit.
China's first public opinion pollster was the Public Opinion
Research Center (PORC), set up in Guangzhou in 1988. It is a
non-governmental organization affiliated to Guangzhou Municipal
People's Political Consultative Conference.
It has conducted polls on topics including commodity prices,
public security, housing reform, traffic, sanitation, state-owned
enterprise reform, employment, social security and medical
treatment. It can also run quick investigations for urgent
cases.
Some of its reports are presented to government departments and
have contributed a lot to decision-making. Others are presented to
the media. Over 80 percent of the findings of self-designed polls
are presented to the public, one head of the center said.
A few years ago, the PORC cooperated with Guangzhou TV to create
a talk show, Yangcheng Forum, to bring together the city's
People's Congress and the public. It offers a platform for people
to participate in the deliberation and administration of government
affairs, and was the first program of its kind in China.
In 1998, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) set up
the International Statistical Information Center. At the start of
last year, the NBS held a special conference, calling on statistics
departments in all provinces and cities to use CATI to conduct
opinion polls.
At present, the method has been used in Beijing, Shanghai,
Guangzhou, Henan,
Shaanxi,
Shandong,
Jiangxi,
Hubei,
Fujian
and Guangxi.
CATI system?is also being set up in Chongqing
and Sichuan,
and preparations for it are underway in Nanjing.
Apart from governmental pollsters, there are also some privately
owned centers, such as the Horizon Research Group. Besides work
commissioned by government, they mostly conduct commercial market
research.
Ke Huixin, vice chairman of the Association of China's Market
Information Investigation Industry and professor at the Communication
University of China, stressed the importance of polling
centers. Both governmental and non-governmental polling centers
should?be independent and professional, Ke said.
In the past, central and?local?governments did not
refer to public opinion polls, and if they did, the findings were
not published. The change in attitudes toward gathering and being
informed by public opinion in this way has been a gradual one.
(China Newsweek, translated by Li Shen and Yuan Fang
for China.org.cn, January 27, 2005)