Referendums and social media: flaming keyboards or forums for deliberation?

Referendums often fail to live up to a deliberative standard, with many characterised by low levels of knowledge, a lack of interest, misinformation, negativity, and a focus on issues besides the ones on which voters are voting on. Social media offers a means of ensuring referendums incorporate a greater deliberative dimension. Through a content analysis of the BBC Have Your Say discussion forums, we test whether online discussion of the upcoming Scottish independence referendum has deliberative characteristics. Results point to a mixed picture with conversation displaying some deliberative features (low levels of flaming and discussion of referendum related issues). However, low levels of discussion intensity, dominance of the discussion by the few, little knowledge exchange, and exceptionally high gender inequality suggest that online referendum discussion lacks deliberative features.