Many people distrust institutions and traditional sources of information, and feel excluded from decisions. One answer is to stop treating people as an audience and to treat them as a community: people who contribute information, evidence and their own knowledge, and sometimes verify or investigate matters of public interest. But opening up the process carries risks and takes resources.
Does taking part in an organisation's work rebuild trust? What has been tried, what has worked and what has not?
On Thursday 29 October, at 16:00 CET, Fundación Maldita.es hosts the webinar "From audience to community: how trust is built when citizens take part", a free one-hour online session, held in Spanish, with two guests who know it from the inside:
-
Lucas Graves, distinguished researcher at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is one of the leading researchers of the global fact-checking movement and the author of Deciding What's True. He has studied Maldita.es's Buloteca and other initiatives by fact-checking organisations that have tried, or managed, to involve citizens in their processes.
-
Neus Vidal Martí, executive director of Seek Initiative, an organisation that trains and supports citizens, community leaders, journalists and civil society organisations to drive change in their communities through grassroots investigations in the public interest.
The session is moderated by Ximena Villagrán, chief operating officer of Maldita.es. After each guest presents, they will discuss lessons learned, mistakes and what other organisations can replicate: why people take part and why they stay, how rigour is kept, how people who investigate are protected, what it costs in time and resources and what is measured. There will be time for questions from the audience.
Who it is for: media outlets, fact-checking organisations and civil society organisations, media and information literacy teams, and any organisation that wants to build community with citizens, with or without a media outlet behind it.
Practical details
-
Date: Thursday 29 October 2026
-
Time: 16:00 CET (1 hour)
-
Format: online, on Zoom
-
Language: Spanish
-
Price: free
Everyone who takes part in the webinar will have access to the guidebook Community as Infrastructure, Maldita.es' practical guide with the model and method for building community, including cases and exercises that any organisation can apply.
The webinar is part of CIRCLE, a project of Fundación Maldita.es co-funded by the European Union through ECAS EURECA Plus.