“What is a referendum?” How we might open up pre-vote TV debates to genuine public scrutiny

The 2015 TV election debates proved their civic value – as they had in 2010, write Stephen Coleman (left), Nick Anstead, Jay G Blumler, Giles Moss and Matt Homer. But in these edited extracts from a University of Leeds report, Democracy on Demand?, Dr Anstead questions whether Twitter is – as some media organisations seemed to imply – representative of public opinion. The authors also urge the media to experiment with the format of any TV debates during the EU referendum campaign to make them more responsive to the public’s questions and reactions.