The future of information also depends on knowing how to work in networks.

I didn't attend the 3i Festival in person, but I followed some conversations, publications and repercussions that circulated from it. And one question stayed with me: when we talk about the future of information, perhaps we are looking too much at the tools and too little at the alliances.

Of course, debates about artificial intelligence, disinformation, elections and the sustainability of journalism are urgent. The festival itself put these themes at the center of public conversation, bringing together discussions on the role of technology, the risks to the informational environment and the challenges of those who work with production, circulation and trust in times of permanent dispute.

But, looking from PontoCo's perspective, it seems to me that there is a previous layer running through all of this: today, almost no organization can build public trust alone.

This applies to journalism, which faces a crisis of model, audience and credibility. It also applies to civil society, which often has territorial knowledge, data, legitimacy and mobilization capacity, but is not always able to transform this into a consistent public presence. It applies to organizations that work with climate, democracy, rights, culture or territorial development and that need to dispute narratives in an increasingly fragmented environment.

The information crisis is not just a content crisis. It is also an ecosystem crisis.

Therefore, one of the conversations that interests me most right now is about collaboration. Not as an abstract value, one that everyone defends in institutional presentations, but as a working method. As a way to plan, distribute responsibilities, build trust and measure impact.

At PontoCo, we call this type of articulation Network Campaigns.

And here it is worth making an important distinction: a network campaign is not a campaign with many logos. Nor is it a group of organizations agreeing to post the same art on the same day. This may even be part of the operation, but it is not what sustains the strategy.

A Network Campaign begins when different actors understand that they can produce more impact if they work from a common purpose, with complementary roles and a shared narrative. One organization can contribute with data, another with territorial presence, another with legitimacy with a community, another with journalistic language, digital mobilization or political articulation. When these capacities meet with method, communication ceases to be merely emission and begins to function as an advocacy infrastructure.

That's why the guide launched by Fundación Avina about symbiotic relationships between journalism and civil society caught my attention so much. The material starts from a simple image: just as in nature some species thrive because they connect with others, journalism also finds strength in symbiosis. Collaborating, in this sense, is not just adding efforts; it is creating mutually beneficial relationships, capable of broadening perspectives, enhancing impact and generating more resilient ecosystems.

This point is important because it takes collaboration out of the realm of a friendly gesture. The question ceases to be “how can we do something together?” and becomes “what can we only achieve if we do it together?”.

This change seems small, but it changes everything. It changes the strategy design, it changes the division of roles, it changes the relationship with audiences and it also changes the way results are measured. After all, when we talk about complex public issues, reach cannot be the only indicator of success. A campaign may not go viral and still open a decisive conversation. A news report may not have millions of views and still pressure an institution. A territorial action may not appear on digital dashboards and still change the way a community organizes itself.

The guide itself argues that planning for impact from the beginning helps guide editorial and strategic decisions, align expectations and ensure that shared efforts generate public value.

This is an important key to thinking about communication today. In a saturated content environment, impact is not just appearing more. It is being able to move something.

And to move something, a single voice is rarely enough.

Perhaps that is why collaboration needs to be treated more seriously. Working in a network does not mean losing identity, nor giving up the autonomy of each part. On the contrary: good collaboration depends precisely on clarity about values, principles, objectives and limits.

When a collaboration lacks method, it tends to become a sequence of meetings, alignments and deliveries that move organizations, but do not always move the debate. When there is no common narrative, each part communicates from its own repertoire and the campaign loses strength as a collective field. When there is no trust, the network begins to dispute protagonism instead of building consequence.

On the other hand, when there is a well-designed architecture, collaboration gains another kind of power. Each organization understands the role it can play, each message comes to occupy a function within the strategy and each action ceases to be just an isolated delivery to support a common direction.

This care also appears in the Avina guide when the material reinforces that good collaboration does not require renouncing identity. What it requires is compatibility between values, editorial principles and institutional objectives, in addition to the ability to anticipate tensions of time, language and organizational culture.

Perhaps this is one of the questions that remain after the 3i Festival: given a scenario marked by AI, disinformation, elections and fragmentation of trust, with whom are we building the conditions for good information to circulate, endure and produce some kind of movement?

For PontoCo, this question is central because Network Campaigns are not just a way to organize collective actions. They are a way to build a field. And building a field requires more than communication. It requires context reading, narrative clarity, pacts between actors, intelligence about circulation and ways to measure what does not always appear on the first dashboard.

In the end, perhaps the difference lies there: communicating is putting a message into the world. Building a field is creating the conditions for different voices, from different places and legitimacies, to sustain the same public direction.

In times of disinformation, content overload and permanent dispute for attention, this may be one of the most important tasks: not just producing more messages, but building trust in networks.

Download the Fundación Avina guide: https://festival3i.org/festival-3i-2026-fundacion-avina-lanca-guia-para-relacao-entre-jornalismo-e-sociedade-civil/