Procedural aspects of knowledge creating and sharing in mini-publics at the times of disinformation

While concerns for the societal effects of disinformation grow, we may need to more scrupulously consider knowledge accumulating and framing in deliberation. Undoubtedly, access to expert knowledge is considered a central element that contributes to creating good conditions for deliberation (Fishkin 2020, Farrell & Curato 2021). However, knowledge sharing in participatory deliberative institutions in the commonly applied form of briefing materials seems too quickly to be taken for granted, as are the procedure of their preparation or their structure. Our study has been motivated by the experience drawn from applied projects where we faced the challenges of framing briefing materials and making them accessible to deliberation participants. It has become apparent that briefing materials’ preparation may follow different procedural paths, e.g. regarding the presence of predefined scenarios or methods for agenda-building or bias-validation by participants. In view of the rather fragmentary literature on models for briefing material preparation and structural elements justified in reference to norms of deliberation, we propose the study reconstructing the models based on the descriptions of embedding briefing materials in particular mini-publics. In our review of literature presenting experiments using mini-publics, we have posed the following questions: (1) what are the methods of briefing materials’ preparation, their role in mini-publics, and their contents as presented in articles? (2) what are the differences and similarities between mini-publics in regard to the briefing materials’ preparation, their role in mini-publics, and their content? (3) how the procedure of briefing materials’ preparation, their role in mini-publics, and their content have been justified in reference to norms of deliberation? To answer these questions, we have analyzed articles published between 1984 and 2021, and presented by the Web of Science or Scopus as a result of the search using keywords embracing various names used to indicate “briefing materials”. The analysis included 159 articles. Only 33 articles contain information about the subjects contributing to the briefing materials’ preparations, including 8 which add justification for their participation in the process. At the same time, even fewer - 31 articles describe the procedure of briefing materials’ preparation, 8 mentioning the consultation of briefing materials with participants before deliberations. As for the content, only articles presenting deliberative polling as a method of mini-public highlighted the information about the predefined scenarios framing the political options under consideration. These are supposed to guide deliberations. The idea of internal pluralism is given attention in some instances in reference to other mini-publics in the form of representation of various perspectives or opinions. In general, “balance” was the most commonly used term to describe briefing materials’ content (22), followed by accuracy (10), accessibility (10), inclusiveness (9), and scientific rigor (7). The presentation will include quantitative as much as qualitative results of the analysis, shading light on competing models for briefing materials’ preparation and content as well as information gaps.