Forsa Institute

The forsa Institute for Social Research and Statistical Analysis (German: forsa Gesellschaft für Sozialforschung und statistische Analyse mbH), forsa for short, is one of the leading market research and opinion polling companies in Germany. It was founded in 1984 by Manfred Güllner in Cologne and is now headquartered in Berlin with a branch in Dortmund; it formerly also had an office in Riga, Latvia.[1]

In addition to opinion research, forsa conducts surveys regarding community and other public services, basic industry, manufacturing, investments broadly construed, traffic and transport, financial services and print, television and other media.

Forsa has approximately 60 permanent employees,[1] and hires further interviewers as part-time independent contractors from Monitel GmbH.[2] In contrast GfK, Germany's largest market research firm, has approximately 1,600 permanent employees in Germany alone.

Methods

Telephone polling

Forsa currently uses computer-assisted telephone interviewing, telephoning a representative sample of at least 1,000 persons per day between 4.30 and 9.00 pm., enabling them to reach most employed people. Those 14 and older are permitted to voluntarily answer questions, which primarily concern social research, political and election research, and media, marketing and online consumer research. The phone numbers are randomly selected and all data anonymised and evaluated only for statistical purposes. For statistical reasons, only the household member who last had a birthday is interviewed. The intention is to form a picture of the "typical German" which includes all ages and both sexes in equal proportions.

To maintain objectivity, the sponsors of a questionnaire are not named until interviews are completed. However, sponsoring firms and institutions and fields of interest can be gleaned from forsa's publications and those of industry groups such as the Berufsverband Deutscher Markt- und Sozialforscher and the European Society for Opinion and Marketing Research. It is clear that opinion research alone no longer suffices to fund larger institutions.

Further survey methods

Forsa also uses other interviewing and surveying methods, in particular computer-assisted personal interviewing for business-to-business surveys.

Online surveys

For online research, forsa uses its own intranet of approximately 10,000 households throughout Germany, forsa.omninet, who are recruited offline and respond to surveys either online or via a television set-top box.[3]

Controversies

Accusations of political bias

Both forsa and its head, Manfred Güllner, have been accused of bias towards the SPD in connection with pre-election polls, most recently before the 2005 election in North Rhine-Westphalia. Forsa was successful in obtaining an injunction against accusations from the CDU on this issue, but their surveys did show in part a greater agreement with SPD positions than those of other polling firms. Forsa have themselves stated that they received 40,000 € in fees in connection with the national election in 2002 and in connection with the state election in 2005. In an interview on 6 September 2002, Hans Mathias Kepplinger, a professor of public relations at the University of Mainz, named three other firms as relatively likely to be free of party bias, but not forsa,[4] although one of the three he named, the Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach, which has collaborated with the University of Mainz, cannot be said to be altogether free of ties to the CDU.

After the national elections in 2005, forsa's closeness to the SPD lessened appreciably and indeed reversed: in 2007 and still more in the first quarter of 2008, forsa reported poll results for the SPD an average of approximately 5% lower than those of other polling firms. Accusations have therefore been levelled at forsa of slanting results against the SPD and its "reformist course" after former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, a longtime friend of Manfred Güllner, stood down in favour of the CDU's Angela Merkel.[5]

One example was a study in summer 2008 on the basis of which forsa reported that 36% of SPD members had considered leaving the party. Then-party chief Kurt Beck criticised Güllner severely and stated that he would not comment on forsa surveys.[6]

Accusations of data manipulation

In 2003 forsa was accused of data manipulation in a poll on tuition fees for higher education commissioned by the Centre for College Development (Centrum für Hochschulentwicklung) co-founded by the Bertelsmann Foundation. According to the statement of findings, the majority of students (59%) and of the population (67%) stated in November 2003 that they would accept tuition fees if they directly benefitted the educational institutions and could be financed through loans.[7] The Centre for College Development announced these results in a press release in December 2003 and they were reported in the press.[8][9] But later that month, a spokesperson for the Centre indirectly admitted that respondents were only given the option of deciding between three models of tuition fees, and not of rejecting them entirely.[10]

In 2007 forsa was accused on the political website NachDenkSeiten of becoming involved through manipulation of a survey in a campaign by the organization Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft (Initiative for a New Social Market Economy) for the introduction of private health insurance.[11]

Forsa was the market research firm involved in the 2009 public relations scandal concerning Deutsche Bahn. Surveys with leading questions which produced results showing disapproval of the 2007 train drivers' strike and approval of privatisation of the railway were secretly funded by Deutsche Bahn.[12][13]

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References
  1. Sven Jöckel (ed.), Einführung in die Markt- und Mediaforschung. Grundlagen, Methoden, Anwendungsbeispiele, Menschen, Märkte, Medien, Management: Berichte aus Forschung und Lehre, Institut für Medien und Kommunikationswissenschaft, Ilmenau Technical University, 2006 (in German) (pdf) p. 8.
  2. Silke Leuckfeld, "Chef ist nicht zu sprechen: Die Arbeitsbedingungen sind katastrophal. Beschäftigte gehen dagegen vor", ver.di Publik, 14 October 2010, retrieved 18 May 2011 (in German)
  3. "Methods" at forsa.com, retrieved 18 May 2011.
  4. "Die Genauigkeit der Wahlprognosen", interview with Hans Mattias Kepplinger, Deutschlandfunk 6 September 2002 (in German)
  5. T. Fleischmann and P. Tiede, "SPD wirft Meinungsforschern Meinungsmache vor: Sozialdemokraten sehen sich durch eine Forsa-Umfrage benachteiligt. Forsa-Chef Güllner sagt: Politiker sind oft unzufrieden", Der Tagesspiegel 28 March 2008 (in German)
  6. Thorsten Denkler interview with Manfred Güllner, "Meinungsforscher Güllner zur SPD-Krise: 'Beck muss weg'. Forsa-Chef Manfred Güllner sieht kaum noch Hoffnung für die SPD für die Bundestagswahl 2009. Zumindest nicht mit Kurt Beck an der Spitze", Süddeutsche Zeitung 6 July 2008 (in German)
  7. "Die Mehrheit der Studierenden (59%) und die Mehrheit der Bevölkerung (67%) äußern im November 2003, dass sie Studiengebühren befürworten würden, wenn diese den Hochschulen direkt zugute kommen und durch Darlehen finanziert werden können." Akzeptanz von Studiengebühren: Ergebnisse einer forsa-Umfrage in der Bevülkerung und bei Studierenden, at Centrum für Hochschulentwicklung (pdf) (in German)
  8. "Neue Umfrage: Angeblich Mehrheit der Studenten für Gebühren", Der Spiegel 11 December 2003 (in German)
  9. Torsten Harmsen, "Studenten-Mehrheit ist für Studiengebühren: Aber nur, wenn sie direkt der Lehre zugute kommen", Berliner Zeitung 12 December 2003 (in German)
  10. "Kritik an Umfrage zu Studiengebühren: Das Centrum für Hochschulentwicklung soll eine Umfrage in einer Pressemitteilung falsch dargestellt haben", Süddeutsche Zeitung 19 December 2003 (in German)
  11. Wolfgang Lieb, "INSM-Kampagne für die private Pflegeversicherung – diesmal mittels einer manipulierten Forsa-Umfrage?", NachDenkSeiten 15 May 2007 (in German)
  12. Ulrich Müller and Heidi Klein, Jenseits des öffentlichen Interesses: Die verdeckte Einflussnahme der Deutschen Bahn für die Bahnprivatisierung und gegen den GDL-Streik, Kurzstudie, LobbyControl.de, updated 9 July 2009 (pdf) (in German)
  13. Zapp: Verdeckte PR – Wie Firmen ihr Image schönen, Norddeutscher Rundfunk 10 June 2009: video at Spotting.at (in German)

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