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This paper uses novel electronic tools to identify the degree to which Australia was listening to Indigenous peoples in a 'national conversation' about constitutional recognition between 2015 and late 2017. The results show that while there was a superficial overlap in themes, there were important differences of framing. Recognition remained a largely formal, elite and non-Indigenous concern, with First Nations focusing on treaties, sovereignty, listening and respect. Interaction was noticeably aggressive, but not exclusively so. Non-Indigenous people avoided discussing racism, and talked more frequently about history, framing issues in the past tense; First Nations talked about the here and now. And despite more focus on everyday racism, Indigenous peoples were consistently more positive and proud, rejecting 'plight' constructions

Deliberative systems theorists have for some time emphasised the distributed nature of deliberative values; they therefore do not focus exclusively on 'deliberation' but on all sorts of communication that advance deliberative democratic values, including everyday political talk in informal settings. However, such talk has been impossible to capture inductively at scale. This article discusses an electronic approach, Structural Topic Modelling, and applies it to a recent case: the Scottish independence debate of 2012–2014. The case provides the first empirical test of the claim that a deliberative system can capture the full 'pool of perspectives' on an issue, and shows that citizens can hold each other to deliberative standards even in mass, online discussion. It also shows that, in deliberative terms, the major cleavage in the 'indyref' debate was not so much between Yes and No, but between formal and informal venues.

Deliberative systems theorists have for some time emphasised the distributed nature of deliberative values; they therefore do not focus exclusively on 'deliberation' but on all sorts of communication that advance deliberative democratic values, including everyday political talk in informal settings. However, such talk has been impossible to capture inductively at scale. This article discusses an electronic approach, Structural Topic Modelling, and applies it to a recent case: the Scottish independence debate of 2012-2014. The case provides the first empirical test of the claim that a deliberative system can capture the full 'pool of perspectives' on an issue, and shows that citizens can hold each other to deliberative standards even in mass, online discussion. It also shows that, in deliberative terms, the major cleavage in the 'indyref' debate was not so much between Yes and No, but between formal and informal venues.