近代中国民意调查论略

On the Survey of Chinese Public Opinion in Modern Times

民意调查在20世纪20年代初兴起于中国。目前可以检索到的近代中国民调多达数百次。民调在近代中国经历了四个发展阶段,形成两次发展热潮。这些民调以民国时期两次大选期间的总统“假选举”及各色各样的“名人”选举为主,也有时事问题的民众意见、民众的信仰状况及一般社会问题的调查。近代中国民调并不成熟,主持人基本上是期刊杂志及大专院校师生,参与者多为社会中上层人士,调查范围狭窄,方法为选择特定对象发放问卷,未发展到“随机抽样”的成熟阶段。但这些调查激起了国人对民调的兴趣,反映了国家在重大政治及民生问题上的民意取向,为认识近代中国历史提供了社会心理学的数据支撑,也留存了社会学在中国初期发展的珍贵史料。

Polls emerged in China in the early 1920s.There are hundreds of modern Chinese polls that can be retrieved.The polls have gone through four stages of development in modern China,forming two development booms.Those polls are based on the“fake elections”of the presidents during the two general elections in the Republic of China and the various“celebrity”elections,as well as investigations of public opinions on current affairs,the belief status of the people,and general social issues.Modern Chinese polls are immature.The moderators are basically teachers and students in colleges and universities,as well as professionals in in journals,most of whom belong to middle and upper class of the society.The scope of the survey is narrow.The method of selecting specific objects to issue questionnaires has not reached the mature stage of“random sampling”.However,those surveys aroused the interest of people involved,reflected the country’s public opinion on major political and livelihood issues,provided social psychology data support for understanding modern Chinese history,and are also precious historical materials of the sociology development in the early days of China.