Citizens’ Jury Statement Increased Readers’ Knowledge of the Issue

Leino, M., Jäske, M. and Setälä, M. (2026), Mini-Public’s Statements and Media as Transmitters of Deliberative Judgments: A Field Experiment on a Citizens’ Jury on Forest Policy. Policy Stud J. https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.70051

Deliberative citizen discussions have become increasingly common in decision-making on complex problems. When assessing their impacts, however, it is important to consider how information about the deliberative process and its outcomes is communicated. Based on previous research, the media cannot necessarily be expected to convey the outputs of deliberative citizen discussions in a balanced way. This study therefore used a field experiment to compare the effects of reading a citizens’ jury statement with those of reading a news story about the jury. The analysis examined participants’ knowledge, attitudes, and perceived opportunities to influence decision-making. To the authors’ knowledge, this was the first time these effects were compared empirically rather than only in theoretical terms.

The study was built around the Lapland Forest Citizens’ Jury. The jury explored Lapland residents’ views on forest use and was tasked with producing recommendations for the Lapland Regional Council’s Green Transition Division on what climate-conscious and just forest use could look like. The study targeted adults living in Lapland; based on random assignment, some received the jury’s statement to read and others a news story about the jury.

The jury statement included, among other things, a description of the citizens’ jury method and a set of detailed recommendations, some of which were fairly controversial. Media coverage of the jury tended to focus on these controversial proposals. The field experiment used a news story published by Finland’s public broadcaster Yle, which also covered three controversial recommendations. The news story described the jury method as well, but unlike the full statement, it did not present the broader context (the current situation and key problems), and it did not summarize all recommendations.

In the field experiment, adults were randomly assigned to three groups: one read the jury statement, another read the Yle news story, and a third served as a control group and received no reading material. Each group completed a short pre-survey measuring, among other things, respondents’ general support for active climate policy. After reading, participants completed a longer survey.

The results show that reading the full statement increased factual knowledge, in line with earlier research. However, reading the statement did not change attitudes or increase perceived opportunities to participate. The news story did not generally produce knowledge gains and in some respects even reinforced false beliefs. It did not reduce climate-friendliness as such, but it increased dissatisfaction with current forest management and its perceived fairness, which was somewhat unexpected.

The study suggests that media attention to deliberative processes can shape citizens’ attitudes in unexpected ways. This underlines the importance of investing in how citizen deliberation and its outputs are communicated.

Read the study 🔓 (open access)
Read more about the Lapland Forest Citizens’ Jury