Scottish nationals calling for a ‘yes’ in the upcoming referendum on independence dominate online sentiment with the official hashtag, #indyref, according to new data.
The report, from PR agency Hotwire, observed the yes vote gain almost 10% more support between March and April, despite multiple swings in the volume of positive sentiment.
Key findings:
• Online support for voting ‘yes’ increases by 10% between March and April
• Peak support on 7 April saw 38.84% of all #Indyref tweets support ‘yes’
• Volatility of online support linked to media coverage
Hotwire’s Insights and Analytics team has been monitoring support for ‘yes’ and ‘no’ for two months since 7 March. On 7 March, the amount of support for voting yes stood at 14.8% of all tweets using the official hashtag. The data analysis has found voters are more likely to tweet in favour of voting yes after listening to debates and interviews.
There is an evident link between the news agenda and support for voting yes for independence. The weekend of 15-16 March saw the support for ‘yes’ jump to 31.74% following a Radical Independence Campaign discussion at Glasgow University and Scotland’s first minister Alex Salmond appearing on the Andrew Marr Show.
Following the peak, without traditional media driving the conversation, tweeting ‘yes’ along with the hashtag plummeted back to 16.7% of all hashtag users the following day. Momentum dramatically increased again on 20 March, boosting up to 33.12% after Carol Fox resigned from the Labour party in the UK to join Women For Independence.
The yes vote saw support peak on 7 April, with 36.84% of all official hashtag users. Support on this day was being driven by supporters of the Scottish National Party (SNP) celebrating the 80th anniversary of the party.
The impact of the news agenda is best displayed by the swing created by the use of #Projectfear to generate support for a former BBC journalist who had criticised the ‘no’ campaign. Over the course of three days in April online support for voting yes swung from 22.77%, then up to 35.38% before dropping down to 21.30%.
The volatility of support is reflected again on 3 May when the Sunday Herald came out in support of the yes campaign. Following the early release of the Sunday edition, online support for the yes vote doubled in volume. Nearly 3000 extra tweets were created and 33.22% of all tweets using #indyref were in favour of independence.
By comparison, very little traction is gained by the ‘no’ vote across Twitter. Only twice has the amount of support for a ‘no’ alongside #indyref climbed above 1% of the total online mentions, with one of these occurrences a joke from deputy SNP leader, Nicola Sturgeon.
Alex MacLaverty, managing director, Hotwire said: “Observing the Twitter reaction to the referendum news agenda has already shown up the strength of support behind the ‘yes’ campaign. Despite the real-time fluctuations in response to day-to-day events, support is still trending upwards. For campaigns on both sides, the correlation between events covered in traditional media and the impact it has on social media is clear and cannot be ignored.”
Visit Hotwire’s Independent Scotland microsite for ongoing stats and analysis.
