Society, 24 Sep, 14:18
80% of Russians did not contact travel agencies to organize a summer vacation Last summer, only 20% of Russians turned to travel companies to organize a vacation outside their permanent place of residence. This is stated in the results of a study by VTsIOM. According to the survey, the remaining 80% preferred to organize their vacation themselves. The Russians named the main disadvantage of vacations organized by travel agencies as their high...Politics, 16 Sep, 05:47
Russians named the advantages of female politicians over their male colleagues ...% of respondents). This was reported by Kommersant with reference to the survey results. VTsIOM. In the telephone survey “Politics with a woman’s face: the Russian version”, which... character and emotionality. Among other shortcomings of women politicians, according to VTsIOM, - inability to focus only on work (6%), shortsightedness (3%) and lack of professionalism...Society, 03 Sep, 13:23
The Russians considered the United States the main source of the terrorist threat VTsIOM). At the same time, the relative majority of Russians consider...Society, 02 Sep, 13:18
Russians rated the quality of teachers' work in schools According to a survey by the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion ( VTsIOM), the majority of parents (78%) positively assess the level of qualifications of teachers in Russian... Only half of Russians correctly described the appearance of the country's flag ... this is evidenced by the results of a survey conducted by the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion ( VTsIOM) on the eve of the State Flag Day of the Russian Federation celebrated on August 22... VTsIOM named the favorite video game of Russians Almost half of Russians have never played video games, and the vast majority of the rest prefer not to spend money on them, according to a survey by VTsIOM. Only 19% of Russians play video games on computers, smartphones and consoles, according to a study by VTsIOM. Almost half of the survey participants (48%) said that they had never played such games... VTsIOM named the share of Russians who consider themselves Orthodox As the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion found out ( VTsIOM), 63% of Russians consider themselves Orthodox. The highest proportion is of those who..., however, do not consider themselves to belong to any confession. All-Russian survey " VTsIOM Sputnik" was conducted on July 26 among 1,600 Russians over 18...The sociological company was founded in 1987 as the All-Union Center for the Study of Public Opinion, and since 1992 - the All-Russian Center. VTsIOM conducts research both at the regional and federal levels, as well as in the post-Soviet space and in “far abroad” countries. Among the main areas of activity of the company: politics (electoral research, monitoring of satisfaction with government), social sphere (education, medicine, family, housing and communal services, fight against corruption), business (finance and insurance, real estate market, development of product and corporate brands, development of corporate reputation, examination of trademarks, information technology market, media measurements, sports industry, automotive market).
VTsIOM has the status of a scientific institution. Since 1993, the company has been publishing its own scientific journal, “Monitoring Public Opinion: Economic and Social Changes.” The magazine is published 6 times a year and has been in the public domain since 2009 (both archive and latest issues). In addition, VTsIOM manages the work of its own department at the Higher School of Economics and a research center at the Russian State University of Social Sciences. The center also regularly holds meetings of its own scientific expert council, which includes the country's leading sociologists. In addition, VTsIOM regularly publishes original and collective monographs devoted to the state of public opinion in Russia. Among the latest: “From Yeltsin to Putin: three eras in the historical consciousness of Russians” (2007), “Political Russia: an election guide-2007”, “Political dictionary of our time” (2006), “Russia at the crossroads of the second term” (2005) .
VTsIOM is the leader among Russian sociological services in terms of citations in the media. Materials based on his research are published in leading Russian and foreign media, such as Reuters, Financial Times, BBC, Kommersant, Vedomosti.
FOM
The Public Opinion Foundation was created as an independent public organization in 1991. At first the foundation worked under VTsIOM, and from mid-1992 it became completely independent. In 1996, FOM acted as the basic sociological organization of B.N.’s election headquarters. Yeltsin. Since then, the main customer and consumer of the Foundation's research results has been the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation. The results of public opinion polls are a kind of feedback between the country's leadership and the population. The Foundation played a similar role in the election headquarters of V.V. Putin in 1999-2000 and in 2004. In addition, the Foundation conducted extensive political science research for most election campaigns in modern Russia. These include the parliamentary campaigns of 1995, 1999, 2003; presidential 1996, 2000, 2004, as well as a series of election campaigns in 1996, 2000, 2004 in the regions of Russia.
In addition to the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation, FOM's customers are the following large organizations: the Government of the Russian Federation, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, MOST-Bank, GAZPROM, VAZ, ORT, VGTRK, NTV, NTV+, YUKOS, Interros, VIDEO INTERNATIONAL, INTERFAX, RIA Vesti.
All the Foundation’s research is aimed at studying subjective ideas in the areas of socially pressing problems (public opinion), politics, government, mass information, economics, consumption, culture and everyday life. The results of the research can be found on the official website www.fom.ru, as well as in the weekly newsletter “Dominants. Field of Opinions."
Levada Center
The Yuri Levada Analytical Center (Levada Center) is a non-governmental research organization. The center regularly conducts its own and custom sociological and marketing research, being one of the largest Russian organizations in its field. The Levada Center team began to take shape in 1987 within the framework of the All-Union Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM). In 2003, the leadership of the Center changed. The research team, who disagreed with the changes made, left the organization in its entirety, creating the “VTsIOM Analytical Service” (VTsIOM-A). However, by court decision the name was changed. Today the organization continues to operate under the name “Yuri Levada Analytical Center” (Levada-Center) in honor of the Russian sociologist Yuri Levada (1930-2006).
Levada Center has its own interviewer network of 67 regional branches and maintains partnerships with public opinion research centers in the CIS and Baltic countries. The results of the center's research are used by the media both in Russia and abroad.
Levada Center is actively engaged in scientific activities. The center publishes the journal “Bulletin of Public Opinion”, which is published 6 times a year. In addition, once a year a collection of the main results of mass public opinion polls in Russia is published and distributed free of charge. Articles are published in scientific journals and books by leading employees of the center, and reports are made at Russian and international conferences. And in 2008, the department of the Yuri Levada Analytical Center began working at the Faculty of Sociology of the Higher School of Economics.
Romir
ROMIR is a large holding company specializing in research into various markets and areas of society. Marketing research makes up 95% of the total volume of implemented projects. The organization was founded in 1987 as a sociological cooperative "Potential". In 1989, the ROMIR research center was created, which was the first of the domestic agencies to present the results of its research on the international market.
The center conducts research in three main areas: specialized marketing research (Ad-Hoc), the SCIF (Shopper-Centric Information Flow) research platform based on data from a consumption panel of Russian households, and research using Mystery Shopping technology.
ROMIR has a developed research network. It includes more than 20 branches and joint companies from the main regions of Russia and the countries of the Eurasian zone. In addition, the center actively cooperates with large international networks Gallup International, GlobalNR and Worldwide Independent Network (WIN). This allows the center to receive information about advanced sociological methods, as well as conduct research in more than 70 countries.
All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion, VTsIOM(until 1992 - All-Union) - the oldest Russian research organization that regularly conducts sociological and marketing research based on public opinion polls. One of the largest Russian companies in this market. Created in 1987. 100% of the company's shares belong to the state.
Description
The oldest sociological company in the post-Soviet space (formed in 1987 by a resolution of the presidium of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions and the State Committee for Labor of the USSR as the All-Union Center for the Study of Public Opinion, with - All-Russian). VTsIOM conducts marketing, social and political research of the full cycle - from the development of concepts and tools to the preparation of analytical reports and presentation of results.
Research is carried out both at the regional and federal levels, as well as abroad. There are partnerships and research is being conducted both in the post-Soviet space and in the EU countries, Japan, China, etc. Among the partners and customers of the Center’s research are leading Russian and foreign companies, universities, government institutions: International Committee of the Red Cross , UN Development Program, Administration of the President of the Russian Federation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Federal Antimonopoly Service of the Russian Federation, Kommersant Publishing House, Reuters, NATO (NATO Office in Moscow), US State Department, National Research University Higher School of Economics, RGSU, Rosneft, RUSAL, Samsung, Intel, etc.
VTsIOM is a member of a number of international professional networks (Intersearch, Eurasian Monitor, etc.) and in its research is guided by ESOMAR standards and norms.
VTsIOM has the status of a scientific institution, publishes its own scientific journal (“”), manages the work of its own department at the National Research University Higher School of Economics and a research center at the Russian State University of Social Sciences, and also regularly holds meetings of its own Scientific Expert Council, which includes the country’s leading sociologists.
VTsIOM was a federal state unitary enterprise; in 2003 it was corporatized. However, 100% of the company's shares belong to the state.
Structure and employees
The central office of VTsIOM is located in Moscow. The company's branches operate in all 7 federal districts of the country. The company's Moscow office employs more than 70 specialists in the fields of sociology, marketing, political science, finance, psychology, and statistics. The Center is headed by Valery Fedorov. Since 2011, the Chairman of the Board of Directors has been Yuri Voitsekhovsky.
Among the company's employees are doctors and candidates of science, graduates of leading Russian and foreign universities (Moscow and St. Petersburg State Universities, Vienna and Moscow Diplomatic Academies, Higher School of Economics, etc.). Our own network of interviewers numbers about 5,000 people. The company's leading departments include:
- Development Directorate
- Communications Directorate
- Department of Socio-Political Research
- Political Studies Department
- Social Research Department
- Office of Business Research
VTsIOM Research
At the regional and federal levels, in the post-Soviet space and in “far abroad” countries, VTsIOM conducts research in 3 main areas:
- politics (electoral research, monitoring of satisfaction with government),
- social sphere (education, medicine, family, housing and communal services, fight against corruption),
- business (finance and insurance, real estate market, development of product and corporate brands, development of corporate reputation, trademark examination, information technology market, media measurements, sports industry, automobile market), etc.
VTsIOM regularly acts as a coordinator and executor of international research projects for foreign and Russian customers - both in Russia and abroad, including UNDP, US State Department, NATO, etc. Since 2004, the Center has been actively involved in building a system of regular sociological research in the post-Soviet space (within the framework of the activities of the Eurasian Monitor agency, one of the founders of which is VTsIOM - along with sociological services of other former republics of the Soviet Union).
The work uses a wide range of research techniques (personal interviews, focus groups, mystery shopping, hall tests, exit polls, expert surveys, telephone interviews, etc.). Among the methods of information processing are both descriptive and inferential statistical analysis, special programs for constructing samples, etc. Population surveys are conducted weekly using an all-Russian representative sample (1,600 people in 140 settlements in 42 regions of Russia).
Some VTsIOM projects over the past 5 years
Scientific and teaching activities
VTsIOM has the status of a scientific institution. In addition, the Center has a scientific expert council, which includes famous Russian sociologists, political scientists, philosophers and historians. Since 1993, VTsIOM has published its own scientific journal, “Monitoring public opinion: economic and social changes.” The magazine is published 6 times a year and has been in the public domain since 2009 (both archive and latest issues). The editorial board of “Monitoring” (completely renewed in 2003) includes leading domestic sociologists (employees of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow State University, Russian State University of Social Sciences, State University-Higher School of Economics, State Financial Committee-Rus, etc.
At the Faculty of Sociology of the Higher School of Economics there is a VTsIOM department (since 2008), and at the RGSU there is a VTsIOM research center (since 2008). VTsIOM holds scientific work competitions among young sociologists. Provides scholarships to the most talented sociology students.
The Center regularly publishes original and collective monographs devoted to the state of public opinion in Russia. Among the latest: “From Yeltsin to Putin: three eras in the historical consciousness of Russians” (2007), “Political Russia: an election guide-2007”, “Political dictionary of our time” (2006), “Russia at the crossroads of the second term” (2005) . VTsIOM employees regularly make presentations at Russian and foreign scientific conferences and round tables.
The VTsIOM team maintains an archive that presents public opinion research since 1992. Thus, in the VTsIOM “Archivarius” database - the results of Express public opinion polls from 1992 to the present, and in the expanded thematic archive - there are functions for in-depth search in the Center’s archive.
Story
Birth. Russia's first institute for studying public opinion. 1987
The resolution on the creation of VTsIOM (then still “all-Union”) was adopted at the July 1987 meeting of the CPSU Central Committee. The founders were the All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions and the State Committee for Labor of the USSR. The first head of the center was Tatyana Zaslavskaya, academician. Her deputy is Boris Grushin. According to Zaslavskaya, the model for her in creating the center was the Institute of Demoscopy in Germany, headed by E. Noel-Neumann. In -1988, thanks to Grushin’s organizational efforts, a network of sociological centers was developed in the republics of the USSR and regions of Russia. This made it possible in November 1988 to conduct the first mass surveys on representative samples of the country's adult population; a year later, research was conducted on a systematic basis. In August 1989, Boris Grushin left VTsIOM and organized his own organization for studying public opinion, “Voice of the People.”
At the same time, VTsIOM, which appeared at the dawn of perestroika, according to the precise definition of Alexey Levinson, “played the role of a maternal swarm, from which emerging families and new agencies for studying public opinion and the market were separated.” So, in August 1989, Boris Grushin left VTsIOM and organized his own organization for studying public opinion, “Voice of the People.” In 1991, on the basis of the VTsIOM team, one of the leading marketing services of modern Russia, the company COMCON, was founded. In 1992, FOM, originally created as a division of the center to raise funds from charitable organizations, separated from VTsIOM, and in 2003 VTsIOM-A was created, later renamed Levada Center.
2003 Conflict
From its very foundation, VTsIOM was a state sociological company. So, in 1987, the founders of the Center were the All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions and the State Committee for Labor of the USSR, then (in 1998) the Center was re-registered as a federal state unitary enterprise (FSUE), and in August 2003, by decision of the Ministry of Property Relations, the FSUE VTsIOM was transformed into OJSC "All-Russian Center for the Study of Social opinions." As before, the state remained 100% owner of the organization. The company's board of directors, consisting of representatives of the shareholder - the state, decided to replace the head of the Center (Yuri Levada), who headed the company in 1992-2003. A young political scientist, Valery Fedorov, was appointed in his place. The complaints against Levada, according to the new leader, were: “stagnation in the scientific field” and the fact that under him “research on the social situation in the country, the problems of poverty, unemployment, employment, the labor market, and emigration” were “undeservedly forgotten.” One of Valery Fedorov’s main tasks as director, in his own words, was to preserve the VTsIOM research team:
“He [Levada] wants to present his own removal as the destruction of Russia’s leading sociological center. I assure you that such destruction will not happen. Unfortunately, Yuri Alexandrovich is trying to present his dismissal as a mass exodus from VTsIOM. We, of course, will not allow this." .
Further history (2003-present)
VTsIOM continued to conduct research programs started by the previous team and publish the journal “Monitoring of Public Opinion: Economic and Social Changes” (the former editorial team continued to work in the newly created journal “Bulletin of Public Opinion” since 2003).
The priority area of research for VTsIOM today is the political mood of the population, attitudes towards government bodies at all levels, their decisions, initiatives and programs. In addition to government agencies, VTsIOM continues to conduct research commissioned by the largest Russian commercial companies and public associations. New areas of research also appeared, in particular, the company began to pay more attention to the social situation in the country, as well as marketing and international research.
Thus, since 2003, VTsIOM has been conducting weekly construction of indices of social well-being. The empirical basis for calculating the indices underlying the time series is data from weekly Express surveys conducted by VTsIOM on a representative all-Russian sample (taking into account quotas by gender, age, education and territorial zoning of the State Statistics Committee) in 42 regions, territories and republics of Russia in 140 settlements (number of respondents 1600 people).
Since 2003, research in the post-Soviet space has also become more important. In 2003, the company became one of the founders of the Eurasian Monitor research agency and by 2009 was conducting regular population surveys in 14 states of the former USSR.
In July 2016, VTsIOM agreed with the British holding WPP to purchase TNS Russia, which measures television audiences in Russia to calculate the cost of advertising. Talks about the sale started at the end of June 2016, after the State Duma adopted a ban on foreign companies to engage in telemetry in Russia if the share of foreign participation is more than 20%.
Criticism
The company is sometimes accused by those who are the object of its research. Thus, the leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Gennady Zyuganov, speaks critically about the objectivity and correctness of the Center’s research: “I believe that this is an unfair study,” said the Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation G. A. Zyuganov, assessing, at the request of the media, the published results of the VTsIOM study on the problem of the Mausoleum of V. I. Lenin (according to this study, Russians are in favor of reburying Lenin’s body in a cemetery).
VTsIOM often makes calls to citizens' home phones without their prior consent, and calls can be made late in the day, on weekends and holidays.
The trial between The New Times and VTsIOM
VTsIOM is also accused of having a “special” relationship with the Kremlin. For example, Natalya Morar, one of the authors of The New Times magazine, published a series of materials in the fall of 2007 about the corruption of VTsIOM and the manipulations used in the center’s research to please the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation. In December 2007, it became known that Natalya Morar was prohibited from entering Russian territory. VTsIOM also filed a lawsuit against The New Times magazine, and after a ten-month consideration in September 2008, the Moscow Arbitration Court recognized the published information that the center has “special commercial relations” with the Kremlin as “untrue”, and ordered the magazine publish a refutation and pay a fine of 10,000 rubles, and the court ordered the journalist who wrote the articles to pay a fine of 100 rubles.
However, regarding the accusations that “when conducting surveys, sociologists from VTsIOM, on instructions from various parties, use so-called formative questions, that is, questions that lead to strictly defined answers,” the court refused to satisfy VTsIOM’s claims. The court decided: “The applicant’s argument that the surveys conducted by VTsIOM were not of a formative nature is unfounded,” and “the press release of VTsIOM No. 771 dated September 18, 2007, which is referred to in the statement of claim, indicates the opposite,” the decision says Moscow Arbitration Court. The court decision in this regard was challenged by the applicant, and the investigation into the case is ongoing.
However, in August 2013, the director of VTsIOM, Valery Fedorov, noted that the main customer of VTsIOM is the Kremlin and the United Russia party and that the results of surveys conducted on their orders can be published only after the customer’s permission.
Description
general information
The oldest sociological company in the post-Soviet space (formed in 2009 by a resolution of the presidium of the All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions and the State Labor Committee of the USSR as the All-Union Center for the Study of Public Opinion, with - All-Russian - For more information about the history of the creation and development of the company, see the section “History of VTsIOM”). In Russia and abroad, VTsIOM conducts marketing, social and political research of the full cycle - from the development of concepts and tools to the preparation of analytical reports and presentation of results.
VTsIOM has the status of a scientific institution, publishes its own scientific journal (“”), manages the work of its own department at the Higher School of Economics and a research center at the Russian State Social University, and also regularly holds meetings of its own scientific expert council, which includes the country’s leading sociologists. (For more information about the scientific potential of the center, see the section “Scientific and teaching activities” below).
Team
The company's Moscow office employs more than 70 specialists in the fields of sociology, marketing, political science, finance, psychology, and statistics. The Center is headed by Valery Fedorov. Among the company's employees are doctors and candidates of science, graduates of leading Russian and foreign universities (Moscow and St. Petersburg State Universities, Vienna and Moscow Diplomatic Academies, Higher School of Economics, etc.). (For more information about the scientific potential of VTsIOM employees, see the section “Scientific and teaching activities of VTsIOM”). VTsIOM branches operate in all 7 federal districts of the country. The network of interviewers numbers about 5,000 people.
Research directions
VTsIOM conducts research both at the regional and federal levels, as well as in the post-Soviet space (together with colleagues from other countries of the former USSR - members of the Eurasian Monitor agency, one of the founders of which VTsIOM is) and in “far abroad” countries. Among the main activities of the company:
(More details in the section: “VTsIOM Research” and in the note: “VTsIOM Clients and Partners”)
Methodology
The work uses a wide range of research techniques (personal interviews, focus groups, mystery shopping, hall tests, exit polls, expert surveys, telephone interviews, etc.). Among the methods of information processing are both descriptive and inferential statistical analysis, special programs for constructing samples, etc. Population surveys are conducted weekly using an all-Russian representative sample (1,600 people in 140 settlements in 42 regions of Russia).
VTsIOM Research
At the regional and federal levels, in the post-Soviet space and in “far abroad” countries, VTsIOM conducts research in 3 main areas:
- politics (electoral research, monitoring of satisfaction with government),
- social sphere (education, medicine, family, housing and communal services, fight against corruption),
- business (finance and insurance, real estate market, development of product and corporate brands, development of corporate reputation, trademark examination, information technology market, media measurements, sports industry, automobile market), etc.
VTsIOM regularly acts as a coordinator and implementer of international research projects for foreign and Russian customers - both in Russia and abroad (including, in particular: UNDP, US State Department, NATO, etc. Read more - in the note: “Clients and partners of VTsIOM”). Thus, since 2004 (as before the collapse of the USSR), the Center has been actively involved in building a system of regular sociological research in the post-Soviet space (within the framework of the activities of the Eurasian Monitor agency, one of the founders of which is VTsIOM - along with sociological services of other former Soviet republics Union).
Some VTsIOM projects over the past 5 years
- Exit polls (exit polls) in the parliamentary and presidential elections of the Russian Federation.(customer - Channel One OJSC) 2007 - 2008
- (OJSC "NK" Rosneft") 2007.
- Assessing the image of the employing company.(OJSC Severstal) 2008
- Assessing the image of the employing company.(LLC "RUSAL-Management Company") 2007
- Research into the well-known nature of a trademark.(Heineken Commercial Service LLC) 2007
- Social adaptation of people with HIV+ status: assessment of the situation in the field of healthcare, education and employment.(UN Development Program) 2007
- Study of interethnic relationships based on the results of all-Russian surveys.(Institute of Diaspora and Integration) 2007
- Studying the conditions of the business environment, assessing the interaction between business and government (according to entrepreneurs).(RSPP) 2007-2008
- Study of the level of trust in the media among Russians.
- Attitude of the Russian population towards the judiciary.(Apparatus of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation) 2007
- Sociological research on issues of unfair competition.(Federal Antimonopoly Service) 2007
- Factors and prospects for the development of football in Russia(National Football Academy Foundation) 2006
- Assessing the attractiveness of housing infrastructure facilities of the Bolshoye Domodedovo investment project("Coalco") 2006-2007
- A study of Russians' perception of NATO.(NATO) 2006
- Analysis and assessment of the situation of the population's perception of the phenomenon of corruption in the public sector of the Russian Federation.(UN Development Program and Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation) 2006
- Investment behavior of the population and awareness of the deposit insurance system.(Deposit Insurance Agency) 2005-2006.
- Study of the perception of large pharmaceutical brands in Russia and Eastern Europe.(Stanton Beringer consulting) Annually since 2005
- Conditions for the functioning of small businesses in the regions of Russia.(OPORA Russia) 2004-2006
- Assessment of reputation indicators of JSC Aeroflot(Aeroflot - Russian airlines) Every year since 2005
- Syndicated study of the corporate reputation of the 10 largest companies in Russia. Twice per year since 2004
- Monitoring the main indicators of social sentiments of residents of post-Soviet countries. Participants: leading sociological services from 14 post-Soviet countries. Twice a year, starting in 2003 - within the framework of the Eurasian Monitor project
Scientific and teaching activities
VTsIOM has the status of a scientific institution. In addition, the Center has a scientific expert council, which includes famous Russian sociologists, political scientists, philosophers and historians. Since 1993, VTsIOM has published its own scientific journal, “Monitoring Public Opinion: Economic and Social Changes.” The magazine is published 6 times a year and has been in the public domain since 2009 (both archive and latest issues). The editorial board of “Monitoring” includes leading domestic sociologists (employees of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow State University, Russian State University of Social Sciences, Higher School of Economics, State Finance Committee-Rus, etc.).
At the Faculty of Sociology of the Higher School of Economics there is a VTsIOM department (since 2008), and at the RGSU there is a VTsIOM research center (since 2008).
VTsIOM holds scientific work competitions among young sociologists. Provides scholarships to the most talented sociology students.
The Center regularly creates and publishes original and collective monographs devoted to the state of public opinion in Russia. Among the latest: “From Yeltsin to Putin: three eras in the historical consciousness of Russians” (2007), “Political Russia: an election guide-2007”, “Political dictionary of our time” (2006), “Russia at the crossroads of the second term” (2005) . (For more details, see the link: “VTsIOM Library – some books published by the company’s staff in recent years”).
The VTsIOM team maintains an archive that presents public opinion research since 1992. Thus, in the VTsIOM “Archivarius” database - the results of “Express” public opinion polls from 1992 to the present, and in the expanded thematic archive there are functions for in-depth search in the Center’s archive.
VTsIOM employees regularly make presentations at Russian and foreign scientific conferences and round tables.
Story
Birth. Russia's first institute for studying public opinion. 1987
The resolution on the creation of VTsIOM (then still “all-Union”) was adopted at the July 1987 meeting of the CPSU Central Committee. The founders were the All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions and the State Committee for Labor of the USSR. The first head of the center was Tatyana Zaslavskaya, an academician. Her deputy is Boris Grushin. According to Zaslavskaya, the model for her in creating the center was the Institute of Demoscopy in Germany, headed by E. Noel-Neumann. In - years, thanks to the organizational efforts of Grushin, a network of sociological centers was developed in the republics of the USSR and regions of Russia. This made it possible in November 1988 to conduct the first mass surveys on representative samples of the country’s adult population; a year later, research was conducted on a systematic basis. In August 1989, Boris Grushin left VTsIOM and organized his own organization for the study of public opinion, “Voice of the People”.
"The first among the new ones." 1992-2003
Appearing at the dawn of perestroika, VTsIOM, according to Alexey Levinson:
"played the role of a maternal swarm, from which emerging families and new agencies for studying public opinion and the market were separated."
Conflict. 2003
From its very foundation, VTsIOM was a state sociological company. Thus, in 1987, the founders of the Center were the All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions and the State Committee for Labor of the USSR, then (in 1998) the Center was re-registered as a federal state unitary enterprise (FSUE), and in August, by the decision of the Ministry of Property Relations, the FSUE VTsIOM was transformed into the OJSC All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion " As before, the state remained 100% owner of the organization. The company's board of directors, consisting of representatives of the shareholder - the state, decided to replace the head of the Center (Yuri Levada), who headed the company in 1992-2003. A young political scientist Valery Fedorov was appointed in his place. The complaints against Levada, according to the new leader, were: “stagnation in the scientific field” and the fact that under him “research on the social situation in the country, the problems of poverty, unemployment, employment, the labor market, and emigration” were “undeservedly forgotten.” One of Valery Fedorov’s main tasks as director, in his own words, was to preserve the VTsIOM research team:
“He [Levada] wants to present his own removal as the destruction of Russia’s leading sociological center. I assure you that such destruction will not happen. Unfortunately, Yuri Aleksandrovich is trying to present his dismissal as a mass exodus from VTsIOM. We, of course, will not allow this.".
VTsIOM today. 2003-2009
VTsIOM continued the research programs developed by the previous team and retained the right to publish the journal “Monitoring Public Opinion: Economic and Social Changes” (the previous editorial team continued to work in the newly created journal “Bulletin of Public Opinion” since 2003).
The priority area of research for VTsIOM today is the political mood of the population, attitudes towards government bodies at all levels, their decisions, initiatives and programs. In addition to government agencies, VTsIOM continues to conduct research commissioned by the largest Russian commercial companies and public associations. New areas of research have also emerged, in particular, the company began to pay more attention to the social situation in the country, as well as marketing and international research.
Thus, since 2003, VTsIOM has been conducting weekly construction of indices of social well-being. The empirical basis for calculating the indices underlying the time series is data from weekly Express surveys conducted by VTsIOM on a representative all-Russian sample (taking into account quotas by gender, age, education and territorial zoning of the State Statistics Committee) in 42 regions, territories and republics of Russia in 140 settlements (number of respondents 1600 people).
Since 2003, research in the post-Soviet space has also acquired greater importance. In 2003, the company became one of the founders of the research agency "Eurasian Monitor" and by 2009 it was conducting regular population surveys in 14 states of the former USSR (in collaboration with colleagues - leading sociological companies in these states.
New regular projects have appeared: The state of the business climate in Russia, the Freedom of Speech Index, Assessment of higher professional education in Russia, Assessment of the activities of courts in the Russian Federation, etc.
The new, more applied and pragmatic focus of VTsIOM’s research programs was also expressed in a change in the Center’s motto: instead of the previous “From opinion to understanding,” it became: “To know means to win!”
Criticism
The company is sometimes accused by those who are the subject of its research. Thus, the leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Gennady Zyuganov, criticizes the objectivity and correctness of the Center’s research: “I believe that this is an unfair study,” said the Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation G.A. Zyuganov, assessing, at the request of the media, the published results of the VTsIOM study on the problem of the Mausoleum of V. I. Lenin (according to this study, Russians are in favor of reburying Lenin’s body in a cemetery).
VTsIOM is also accused of having a “special” relationship with the Kremlin. The most famous scandal of this kind is associated with the publication in The New Times magazine in the fall of 2007 of a series of materials about the corruption of VTsIOM and the manipulations used in the center’s research to please the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation. VTsIOM filed a lawsuit against The New Times magazine, and after a ten-month review in September 2008, the court declared the published information that the center had “special commercial relations” with the Kremlin “untrue” and ordered the magazine to publish a refutation. and the journalist who wrote the articles was ordered by the court to pay a small fine.
However, regarding the accusations that “when conducting polls, sociologists [from VTsIOM] on instructions from various parties use so-called formative questions, that is, questions that lead to strictly defined answers,” the court refused to satisfy VTsIOM’s claims. The court decided: “The applicant’s argument that the surveys conducted by VTsIOM were not formative in nature is unfounded.” “The press release of VTsIOM No. 771 dated September 18, 2007, to which there is a reference in the statement of claim, indicates the opposite,” says the decision of the Moscow Arbitration Court. The court decision in this regard was challenged by the applicant, and the investigation into the case is ongoing.
Notes
- "Monitoring of public opinion: economic and social changes"
- "Media ratings of sociological centers"
- "Professional network ESOMAR"
- Eurasian Monitor
- "Monitoring magazine archive"
- "VTsIOM Library"
- "Database Archivist"
- "Extended thematic archive"
- Grushin B.
- Zaslavskaya T. How VTsIOM was born / Social rift and the birth of a new sociology: twenty years of monitoring. - pp. 11-17.
- Alexey Levinson's pages
- Grushin B. On the distant and near approaches to the creation of VTsIOM / Social rift and the birth of a new sociology: twenty years of monitoring. - M.: New publishing house, 2008. - P. 18-22.
- history of the company
- Levada Yu. From opinions to understanding. Sociological essays 1993-2000. SS. 391-548.
- Levada Yu. We are looking for a person. Sociological essays 2000-2005. SS. 263-379.
- Interview with Valery Fedorov / Nezavisimaya Gazeta dated September 11, 2003
- Interview with Valery Fedorov / Weekly magazine, No. 150 from 01/13/2005
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