The Village Decides: Participatory Democracy Through Virtual Tours
Association for Rural Technological Development
Spain
he Village Decides transforms virtual tours into ethical digital spaces for democratic participation in rural areas. Through participatory workshops, local residents collectively create a virtual tour that reflects shared challenges, aspirations, and community values. By combining digital literacy, collective storytelling, and civic dialogue, the project empowers rural communities to use digital tools not as passive consumers, but as active citizens shaping their local democratic life.
The Village Decides is a participatory cultural project that reimagines virtual tours as ethical digital spaces for local democracy in rural communities. Instead of using digital tools only for tourism or promotion, the project places citizens at the centre of content creation and decision-making.
Through a series of inclusive, intergenerational workshops held in the rural coworking space of Ansó, residents collectively identify local challenges, shared values, and future aspirations. Participants receive basic digital training and work together to design and curate a community-led virtual tour, where each digital stop represents a voice, a concern, or a collective reflection.
The virtual tour becomes both a cultural outcome and a democratic process: a shared digital space that fosters dialogue, civic expression, and ethical participation. By combining digital literacy, collective storytelling, and facilitated discussion, the project strengthens democratic engagement, empowers rural citizens as active digital participants, and offers a replicable model for community-driven digital democracy in rural Europe.