This document summarizes a social media report on discussions around the Scottish independence referendum that took place from February 13-26, 2012. It found that in the first week, there was a peak in news commentary surrounding speeches by UK and Scottish politicians. The second week saw a rise in pro-independence posts following an intervention by Rupert Murdoch and concerns about investment in Scotland. Tables show the breakdown of posts by category and platform for each week. The report concludes by noting the debate will likely continue as the referendum nears and that monitoring social media could provide quick insights into political and social issues.

1. Social Media Report:
Scottish Independence Referendum,
February 2012.
Period: 13/02/2012 - 26/02/2012
The posts collected were divided into the following Tech classes:
Web
News
Blog
Microblogs
Media
Summary
The Referendum on Scottish Independence, due to be held in 2013 or 2014, is probably the
most important constitutional issue facing the United Kingdom in the next few years. As such,
there will be considerable debate about it. For two weeks starting on the 13th of February,
2012, we ran a search for Scotland AND (Referendum OR Independence) using listenable, and
classified the data into pro, undecided, anti, or news.
The data in the first week produced the first chart, in week two the second:
200
Pro
180 Undec
anti
160
news
140
120
Frequency
100
80
60
40
20
0
-20
02/12 02/13 02/14 02/15 02/16 02/17 02/18 02/19
00:00 00:00 00:00 00:00 00:00
Month-Day 00:00 00:00 00:00
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2. 160
Pro
Undec
140 anti
news
120
100
Frequency
80
60
40
20
0
-20
02/19 02/20 02/21 02/22 02/23 02/24 02/25 02/26
00:00 00:00 00:00 00:00 00:00
Month-Day 00:00 00:00 00:00
In both weeks there was a peak of news comment surrounding the issue. In the first week, this
was comment about David Cameron’s (UK Prime Minister) speech in Edinburgh and the
meeting he had with Alex Salmond, leader of the Scottish Nationalist Party and First Minister in
the Scottish Government (or Executive). In the second week the first peak on the 21st consisted
of posts regarding Robert Maxwell’s intervention in the debate:
RT @rupertmurdoch: Let Scotland go and compete. Everyone would win.
The second peak, later in the week, followed the announcement by Scottish and Southern
Electricity, one of the largest Scottish-based companies, that the uncertainty surrounding the
legislative future as a result of the referendum debate was making them unlikely to invest in
Scotland in the short term.
The split of posts in the first week was:
Mech pro undec anti news Total
MicroBlog 65 564 388 1027 2044
Blog 0 1 7 29 37
News 0 7 51 160 218
WWW 3 74 355 750 1182
Media 1 5 4 65 75
Total 69 651 805 2031 3556
Percent 4.52 42.69 52.79 57.11%
Note that percentages for pro, anti, and undec are calculated out of those expressing an
opinion, while the percentage for news is taken from the total volume of posts.
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3. The same data for the second week:
Mech pro undec anti news Total
MicroBlog 328 407 60 1001 1796
Blog 0 1 3 24 28
News 1 1 2 121 125
WWW 13 28 31 581 653
Media 0 0 0 34 34
Total 342 437 96 1761 2636
Percent 19.42 24.82 5.45 66.81
Commentary.
These tables show that there was a big swing to the “pro” position in the second week. I
believe that this was due to two factors – there were no large public speeches in favour of the
Union (such as Cameron’s in the first week), and Murdoch’s tweet gave impetus to the pro
camp.
Actions.
It is likely that the conversation around the issue of Scottish independence will continue to sway
back and forth, and will grow as the referendum gets closer. We will continue to monitor it and
report on our blog. We believe that the tools we are using here could be valuable in gathering
opinions quickly on important political and social matters, though of course the sample is not
representative and the results cannot be quoted as being close to any likely outcomes from
voting.
For detailed reports covering the first two weeks, see http://churnbar.com/2012/the-scotland-
debate-independence-the-future-of-the-union-and-social-media-1/ and
http://churnbar.com/2012/the-scotland-debate-independence-the-future-of-the-union-and-
social-media-2/
© Churnbar 2011
http://churnbar.com enquiries@churnbar.com