ABSTRACT
The 2014 Scottish independence referendum provides a unique opportunity to explore the impact of social media as a campaign tool in a referendum. In this chapter, the authors examine the social media campaigns of the two official protagonists in the independence referendum debate, the 'Yes Scotland' (YS) campaign, which campaigned for a yes vote in favour of Scottish independence, and the 'Better Together' (BT) campaign, which argued for a no vote, and Scotland remaining within the United Kingdom. Their focus is on each campaign's use of two of the most popular social media, Facebook and Twitter. The authors' analysis is based on a unique set of data that captures the activity of the two campaigns on these two channels over a 14-month period from August 2013 up until the referendum in September 2014. They also examine the trends in engagement with social media over the course of the referendum campaign.
