UAB’s Laboratory of Journalism and Communication for Plural Citizenship – Labcompublica, is an officially recognised as a consolidated research group by the Generalitat of Catalonia (Government of Catalonia) (SGR976). It was created as the result of the union of the Feminary Women and Mass Culture and the Laboratory of Public Communication. .
The research from both teams agreed that journalism mainly focused its attention on institutions, entities and abstract data. As a result of this dehumanization, research needs to be dedicated to develop methodologies and new tools in order to help citizens to exercise their democratic rights, starting by getting access to a complete and comprehensive information..
In recent years we have developed a methodology for improving the transparency of local and public administrations, applying a procedure of rigorous evaluation and an effective communication strategy. The results of this work have shown that academic research can contribute to improve public communication. Based on this experience, we are currently working on a project to give to the non-profit organizations the resources that will help them to recognize their communications current state and how they can improve it..
To achieve this aims, our team have developed several tools, like the Interactive Map of Media in Catalonia or the Infoparticipa Map. Also nowadays we are working on the platforms HumanismePlural.com and TransparEnt.info.
The Laboratory of Journalism and Communication for Plural Citizenship Research Group (Labcompublica) merged in 2019 with The Radio Advertising and Communication Research Group (Publiradio), both at UAB. This merger, the result of the synergies of work of the two groups mentioned above, materialized in the creation of the Sound, Strategic and Transparency Communication Research Group ComSET, recognized by the Generalitat de Catalunya.