https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7615-6779
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ABSTRACT
As misperceptions undermine the factual basis for public debate, they pose a serious challenge to expert knowledge and the democratic legitimacy of public policy informed by expert evidence. In this paper, we theorize that in times of politicization and polarization of expertise, endorsement of expert information by a minipublic can serve to legitimize expert correction and render it more persuasive in the eyes of individuals. In developing our theoretical argument, we focus on the effect of a minipublic on individuals in the wider public – those who did not participate in such institutions. To test our theoretical predictions, we designed, pre-registered and fielded two experiments in the US (N = 2168) and one experiment in Ireland (N = 1125), during two different waves of COVID-19. The results show that minipublic endorsement significantly increases the uptake of expert information among (nonparticipating) citizens. Furthermore, when an expert correction explicitly asserts a scientific consensus, it is as effective as the minipublic endorsement. The findings have implications for the research on misperceptions, expertise and deliberative institutions.
Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful to three anonymous reviewers for their incredibly helpful comments that have substantially improved the quality of this manuscript. They are also thankful to the participants of the Institutions and Political Actors (IPA) Research Group Seminar at UPF, UB Political Science Seminar, the Hot Politics Seminar at the University of Amsterdam, as well as to Stephan Lewandowsky, Jason Reifler and his research group at the University of Exeter, André Bächtiger and his seminar group at the University of Stuttgart, Kimmo Grönlund and his team at Åbo Akademi, John Gastil, and Ken Carty for their comments and feedback on the earlier versions of this paper.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Supplementary material
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website at https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/PWMUKQ
Notes
1. The question of who is an expert and for what topic, is subject to a debate; and the definition of an expert can differ depending on the country, time and context (Vraga & Bode, 2020). For the purposes of this paper, we refer to relevant “scientific experts” (as opposed to “experiential experts,” for instance) with necessary domain knowledge and skills. When we refer to expert evidence, we mean the “the best available evidence” at the time (Garrett et al., 2016, p. 333).
2. Factcheckers and scholars use the term “correction” (i.e. corrective information) to denote accurate or reliable information that has been issued in response to false or disputed claims. Corrective information is typically issued following an investigation and/or claims analysis. As such, it is distinct from other kinds of information such as opinion. The term “corrective information” is also used to provide a distinction between the stimuli (the provision of correct information) and the desired outcome (correcting public misperceptions).
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Notes on contributors
Lala Muradova
Lala Muradova is Assistant Professor at the Department of Political and Social Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), Barcelona where she co-coordinates the Institutions and Political Actors (IPA) Research Group.
Eileen Culloty
Eileen Culloty is an Assistant Professor in the School of Communications and deputy director of the Institute for Media, Democracy and Society.
Jane Suiter
Jane Suiter is a Professor in the School of Communications and director of DCU's Institute for Future Media, Democracy and Society.