Opposing Campaigns Adopted Different Strategies Despite Similar Social Media Activity

Voting and Elections @BJPS 2 datasets Dataverse

During the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, online political communication showed distinct patterns influenced by polling data.

Data & Methods:

Twitter messages from @YesScotland and @UK_Together were analyzed during June 16 to September 17, 2014.

Key Findings:

Better Together employed more negative tweets when polling ahead.
Yes Scotland escalated negativity following each debate with leaders.

Why It Matters:

This study reveals how campaign sentiment shifts differently across organizations despite shared data sources.

Article card for article: Tones from a Narrowing Race: Polling and Online Political Communication during the 2014 Scottish Referendum Campaign

Tones from a Narrowing Race: Polling and Online Political Communication during the 2014 Scottish Referendum Campaign was authored by Evelyne Brie and Yannick Dufresne. It was published by Cambridge in BJPS in 2020.