Профессор Ханс Зеттерберг (Hans Zetterberg) – известен в Швеции, ряде Европейских государств и США как социолог, долгие годы работающий в области изучения общественного мнения, ценностей массового сознания, потребительского поведения, деятельности средств массовой информации и в смежных областях. Он преподавал в Университете Стокгольма, в Коламбийском Университете в Нью-Йорке, в Университете штата Огайо и других изестных вузах.

Им опубликовано множество книг и статей, он широко известен как публицист и редактор массовых изданий, постоянно выступает на шведском радио и телевидении, консультирует различные шведские и международные фирмы. В настящее время он уделяет значительное внимание развитию кросс-культурных исследований ценностей, участвует в ряде международных, глобальных проектов.

Ханс Зеттерберг - почетный доктор ряда университетов и член многих шведских и международных научных обществ. В 1986-88 – он был Президентом Всемирной Организации Исследователей Общественного Мнения (WAPOR).

В 1999 году профессор Х. Зеттерберг был награжден WAPOR почетной премией Helen S. Dinerman. В его выступлении после получения награды он кратко рассказал о своем опыте изучения общественного мнения и немного - о совместной работе с Джорджем Гэллапом, с которым его связывали многолетние дружеские отношения. Профессор Зеттерберг любезно разрешил нам разместить на нашем сайте соответствующий фрагмент его выступления.

Борис Докторов

…The were strong, flamboyant, individualists working in the private sector and had names such as ..Gallup…

…At a later date George Gallup (or Ted as we called him) became my friend. I learned much from him. His innovations and insights were never packaged as "research products" and licensed to others. He gave them away to his friends around the world. If there is such a thing as American intellectual imperialism - and the French are not alone in believing so - it has a very kind face. To me American intellectual imperialism is the Rockefeller tour and Dr. Gallup's generosity.

…In the 50 years that I have been in polling or close to polling in some capacity or another, the nature of the enterprise has changed. We have had much more than technical changes.

In the beginning the pollsters were driven by an ambition to bring the views of the public to the attention of everybody, particularly the politicians. Of course, Gallup did not think that the politicians were constitutionally bound to follow public opinion as revealed in his polls. But he felt that they were morally obliged to do so.

The first generation of pollsters used the rhetoric of the French and American Revolutions. In democracy the people is the ruling class. In democracy politicians are the servants of people, not their lords. The source of political actions and programs were found in the general public. Gallup and his generation of pollsters believed that the public's views were loaded with political wisdom, and that a poll was the key to unlock it.

A critical task for the pollster was to ask questions revealing the public's concerns rather than the pollster's concern. Gallup solved this in the late 1930s by regularly asking "What is the most important problem facing the country today?" He did not define the problem, his respondents did.

With this approach it was natural that newspapers became sponsors of the polls. The freedom of polling had a tentative protective umbrella in the academic freedom of the universities but found its main umbrella in the freedom of the press.

The early pollsters' view of democracy was challenged from many quarters as too simple-minded. The Austrian-American economist Joseph Schumpeter had formulated a serious alternative. The sources or initiatives of political actions are normally found, not in the general public, but in the various elites or parties that compete for the driver's seat of the state. This notion fitted particularly the European scene where we had the landed aristocracy defending privileges, the clergy guarding moral values, the agrarians with protectionism on their agenda, the industrial and business elites promoting free trade, and strong labor movements demanding welfare rights and a greater share of the national patrimony. When a country becomes democratic the public becomes the jury in these struggles, and the public decides which elite or party is to rule. The pollsters give a voice to this jury of the public. However, it is not the jury's ideas that are polled and voted on, but the ideas of the various elites.