Countering misperceptions about Covid-19: the effectiveness of mini-publics as a source of correction

As Covid-19 intensified the need for strategies to reduce scientific misperceptions, this study combines the literature on deliberative mini-publics and information corrections to investigate whether mini-publics may be an effective source of factual corrections. As mini-publics engage the scientific consensus before conferring a peer consensus, we suggest they may be a persuasive means of reducing misperceptions. To test this, we conducted two pre-registered survey experiments on national samples in the US and Ireland. Results show that mini-public corrections exert a substantive and statistically significant effect on reducing misperceptions. However, when the expert correction explicitly affirms the scientific consensus, there is little difference between the effectiveness of expert and mini-public corrections. We discuss the findings in terms of the practical implications for countering misperceptions and the wider benefits of mini-publics as a source of corrections.