churnbar scotland comparative
TRANSCRIPT
© Churnbar 2011
http://churnbar.com [email protected]
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:
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© Churnbar 2011
http://churnbar.com [email protected]
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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© Churnbar 2011
http://churnbar.com [email protected]
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/