Public Opinion Research at Crossroads.

Public opinion research was born at two junctures of history: diffusion of mass media technology of radio and television and representative democracy based on universal suffrage. It was roughly in mid-twentieth century. In the early twentieth-first century the world is utterly different. It is an era of the bursting diffusion of monitoring instruments: gauging everyone and everything, videotaping the movement of everything and everyone. The state monitors everyone while everyone monitors the state. Furthermore, the tide of globalization has blurred national borders and transnational individuals and organizations have sprung. E-bandits roam around the glove. In such an era, the concept and practice of public opinion research are bound to metamorphose themselves. This year we focus on empirical reality emanating from such an era. We have prepared twelve big sessions where you register your participation. They are:

1. The End of Public Opinion in the Sense of George Gallup? Population-Sampling Theory in Practice
2. Social Media and Dividable Persons
3. How to Measure to Take Care of Aging Societies in Asia
4. Has Public Opinion Research Helped Sustain Representative Democracy in Asia?
5. The Future of Family in Asia
6. Is Social Capital in Neighborhood Community Critical in Disaster Mitigation?
7. Well-Being and Quality of Life in Asia
8. Nurturing Norms and Values among Children in Asia
9. Eating Habits in Asia
10. Self-Sustainable Societies in Asia?
11. Perception and Communication of Environmental Risk in Asia
12. Health and Demographic Change in Asia
13. Health Promotion and Nursing Science
14. Gambling Research (joint session with Asian Health Psychology Association)