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A participatory process is a sequence of participatory activities (e.g. first filling out a survey, then making proposals, discussing them in face-to-face or virtual meetings, and finally prioritizing them) with the aim of defining and making a decision on a specific topic.
Examples of participatory processes are: a process of electing committee members (where candidatures are first presented, then debated and finally a candidacy is chosen), participatory budgets (where proposals are made, valued economically and voted on with the money available), a strategic planning process, the collaborative drafting of a regulation or norm, the design of an urban space or the production of a public policy plan.
R3: New digital communities
Challenge 3
About this process
Initial version of the challenge
At the starting point, the challenge seems to be based on a concern about the harmful effects of certain digital dynamics: disinformation, social pressure, misleading content, ideological influence, discomfort and a feeling of lack of help. The initial concern is not yet formulated as “designing new communities”, but rather as a criticism of how many of the existing communities work.
Reformulation after collective work
As the analysis progressed, the group reformulated the challenge in a much more structural way. The problem was no longer simply that “there is fake news on the internet” or that “networks generate pressure”, but was understood as a question of community infrastructure: which communities are made possible by current platforms, under which rules, with which biases, at the service of whom and with what consequences for those who participate in them.
In this reformulation, the central question is no longer just how to protect oneself from harmful content, but how to create different digital communities: less biased, less oriented by market interests or ideology, more critical, more verifiable and more capable of connecting people with each other in a meaningful way.
The dramatized scene reinforces this change in focus. There, the problem is not just that a young woman spends time watching trends, but that she remains in a spectator relationship: she observes plans, references and possibilities, but fails to convert them into real social experience. The challenge then shifts from “seeing things” to “being able to be part of something”.
Key shifts
From “social network” → to community infrastructure
From content problem → to design, governance and mediation problem
From trend consumption → to building membership and encounter
From following influencers → to finding people with shared interests
From interest-driven platforms → to spaces with verification, criterion and care
From digital connection → to activating real social interactions
🤯 Dilemmas that we face
The risk is confusing coordination with connection. A community doesn’t exist simply because there’s a calendar, a chat group, assigned tasks, or recommendations based on shared interests. It exists when a group decides to sustain itself, take responsibility, navigate discomfort, and nurture its rel…
🎭 Scene 3 – “The difficulty of creating community”
The scene opens in a shared space. A group of young people are talking, but they are not quite connected to each other.They talk about community. The need to be part of something. Not to feel alone.But the words don't always match what's happening.Someone says they would like to have more of a relat…
Related processes
Reference: OS-PART-2026-02-149