Study title

Scotland

Text unit

Content analysis of recordings of televised news bulletins. The sample contains all the coverage of the EU referendum broadcast on BBC Reporting Scotland in the final month of the campaign, between 23 May and 23 June 2016. This dataset contains the coding of the frames that appeared in news items. The file records the date, duration, and type of each item in this coverage and whether or not the following frames were present: policy, strategic game, relationship between England and Scotland, divorce, constitutional change, national division, self determination, and national identity. The programmes were watched and coded for presence or absence of the frames, based on the following indicators. Indicators of game frame: emphasis on political strategy; war, game and horse-race metaphors; emphasis on who is winning or losing; reports of how the two sides are doing in polls; analyses of politicians’ performance. Indicators of policy frame: focus on policy problems, politicians’ proposals for their solution and/or their implications for the public. Indicators of identity frame: references to British distinctiveness; references to the common features and history that British people share with Europe. Indicators of self-determination frame: references to the UK making decisions separately from the EU (not specifying what decisions); references to the UK running its own affairs. Indicators of divorce frame: marriage, relationship and/or breaking up metaphors; representation of the UK and the EU as human partners or friends falling out. Indicators of national division frame: reports on division within the UK, emphasis on conflictive nature of the referendum. Indicators of Anglo-Scottish relationship frame: references to how the referendum outcome may influence the relationship between Scotland and England, speculations about what may happen if the two nations vote differently or similarly. Indicators of constitutional change frame: references to changing the status of the UK within the EU.