The Scottish independence referendum in 2014 saw the breakthrough of online political campaigning in the UK. Despite the outcome, research and media alike concluded that the main pro-independence campaign, Yes Scotland (YS), outdid the main pro-union campaign, Better Together (BT), in the online battle. This article addresses this discrepancy by exploring how YS and BT used social media affordances in order to legitimize their own and de-legitimize their opponents’ positions. The material consists of multimodal tweets published by YS and BT in the run-up to the referendum. The article employs a model for multimodal legitimation that takes into consideration the construction of authority, moral evaluation and the construction and justifications of means and goals. The findings show that both campaigns made extensive use of de-legitimating strategies, although YS was more balanced. The article also shows that the campaigns’ communicative choices had implications for the construction and justification of goals and means, with YS running a more visionary campaign than BT.

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在 Twitter 上使苏格兰独立合法化：主要官方运动的多模式比较

2014 年的苏格兰独立公投见证了英国在线政治竞选的突破。尽管结果如此，研究和媒体都得出结论，主要的支持独立运动 Yes Scotland (YS) 在在线战斗中胜过了主要的支持工会运动 Better Together (BT)。本文通过探讨 YS 和 BT 如何使用社交媒体可供性来使自己的立场合法化并使对手的立场合法化，从而解决了这一差异。该材料由 YS 和 BT 在公投前发布的多模式推文组成。本文采用了一个多模态合法化模型，该模型考虑了权威的构建、道德评价以及手段和目标的构建和正当性。调查结果表明，尽管 YS 更加平衡，但两项运动都广泛使用了去合法化策略。文章还表明，活动的交流选择对目标和手段的构建和论证有影响，YS 运行的活动比 BT 更有远见。