Forsa Institute
The Forsa Society for Social Research and Statistical Analysis mbH, short Forsa is - in addition to the research group elections, Emnid, Allen Bach and infra dimap - one of the leading market and opinion research institutes in Germany. Founder of the company is Manfred Güllner.
In Forsa around 60 permanent employees operate more interviewers be deployed as a freelancer by the company Monitel GmbH Forsa (as of October 2010). GfK SE, the largest German market research company employs in comparison, in Germany alone, around 1,600 permanent employees. Founded in 1984, Forsa has its headquarters in Berlin and has offices in Dortmund and Riga.
Approach to public opinion research
Telephone surveys
Currently, at least 1,000 persons representative identified are interviewed by phone 16:30 to 9:00 p.m. clock every working day. (In this time frame also very important for surveys group of workers is mainly to be found ). From 14 years upwards can you volunteer to participate in the interviews, mainly, voting and, turning to the areas of social research policy research media, market and online research.
It should be mainly determined a mood "of the Germans." The called telephone numbers are determined randomly, that is, the interviewer does not know who he will conduct the interview, all requested data will be made anonymous. For statistical reasons, the interviews will be conducted with the person in the household who had the last birthday. In this way is to ensure that in these surveys included all age groups, and that men and women to the same extent be questioned. The data are evaluated only for statistical information.
Since the data is to be determined objectively, the principal of a survey, as long as the deadline for responses is not known. Nevertheless, can be ( partially publications of associations, such as the BVM or ESOMAR ) read from publications of the Institute, the individual business units and the order passed companies and institutions.
Other collection methods
In addition to the telephone interviews ( CATI ) forsa puts more data collection and analysis methods one, especially in the B- to-B research the CAPI surveys ( computer -assisted personal interviews ).
Online Survey
In the online research, however, the institution shall use its own intra- net of panel participants, the forsa.omninet from currently 10,000 representative households nationwide (as of August 2005). The ( cost- ) research online via PC and Internet forsa seems as if it might confront skeptical or hostile from the grounds of lack of representativeness.
In addition to polling the performance profile includes the service areas: municipal and other public utilities, basic industries, crafts, capital goods generally, transportation, financial services, media, Print, Media, TV.
Controversies surrounding Forsa
Both forsa as well as the Institute Director Manfred Güllner, even member of the SPD, have been considering various election predictions, most recently for the 2005 election in North Rhine -Westphalia, accused of a certain SPD nearby. The Forsa institute procured against such accusations from the CDU successfully an injunction, but was that in political questions a partially greater support of the respondents was to determine SPD -related positions than at other banks. According to information received Forsa 2002 federal election and 2005 state election in North Rhine Westphalia orders worth 40,000 Euros, otherwise no. On 6 September 2002 the Mainz professor of journalism Hans Mathias Kepplinger mentioned in an interview with TIME Infra test, Emnid and the Institute for Allensbach - and not forsaking - as institutions that were not evident too biased because of their interests, even though the head of the Institute for Allensbach, Elisabeth Noelle - Neumann, and its Managing Director Renate Kocher a closeness to the Union is not necessarily deny. That the Allensbacher Institute with the University of Mainz cooperates ( Noelle - Neumann was there Director of the Institute of Journalism ) - consequently thus also with the journalism professor Kepplinger - refers to the smooth transition of opinion research and public opinion formation. Regardless of the Forsa survey was for 2009 federal election the most appropriate.
The Forsa in the past accused the SPD - close perspective has significantly after the 2005 federal election and the opposite way round. As early as 2007, and more determined in the first quarter of 2008 Forsa poll numbers for the SPD, which were on average about 5 percentage points below the numbers of the other polling organizations. Therefore, rise recently allegations against Forsa, after the resignation of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who is a friend of the institute's director Manfred Güllner, against the SPD and an observed to move away from the demo copy " reforms ".
An example of this is a Forsa study from the summer of 2008., You came to the conclusion that 36% of SPD members have been thinking about an exit from the party. The former SPD leader Kurt Beck criticized Güllner massive and announced that he will not comment on surveys conducted by the Forsa Institute.
A report by the ARD Berlin Studios about a survey for the parliamentary election in 2013 relativized the Forsa result in January 2013: As a general rule, however, in the eyes of many industry insiders: Surveys of Forsa should be treated with extreme caution. Very often they are far away from what most other pollsters measure.
Allegations of manipulation of polls
2003, the accused had become loud, have a Forsa survey on tuition fees manipulated, which had been commissioned by the Bertelsmann Foundation affiliated Centre for Higher Education Development ( CHE). It was said in the results: " The majority of students (59%) and the majority of the population ( 67%) express in November 2003 that it would support tuition fees when they come to the universities directly benefit and can be financed through loans. " These results were published in a press release of the CHE in December 2003 and adopted by some newspapers. Later it was given indirectly, according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung of CHE that respondents actually only between different models of tuition fees, but could not decide entirely against it.
The authors of the NachDenkSeiten collected in 2007 alleged that Forsa had participated via a rigged poll in a campaign of employer- Initiative New Social Market Economy for the introduction of a private long-term care.
Forsa was involved at the 2009 Institute had come to the public PR affair of Deutsche Bahn. About concealed payments of the Deutsche Bahn surveys were given to leading questions in order, which had a rejection of the train driver strikes of 2007 and an endorsement of rail privatization.