Authored by Mariana Jasper, Vice President & Partner, Alurralde, Jasper + Asoc.
I know audience fragmentation is nothing new: we have spent decades discussing information bubbles, echo chambers, and algorithms that reinforce existing beliefs. What is changing is the nature of the challenge: we are moving beyond the fragmentation of information toward the fragmentation of trust itself.
This means that two people can encounter exactly the same information and reach entirely different conclusions. Not necessarily because one is misinformed, but because they interpret reality through different frames of reference and, more importantly, because they do not trust the same sources.
This growing insularity of trust reflects a tendency to place greater confidence in those who share our values and worldview, while becoming increasingly reluctant to recognize the credibility of those who think differently. The boundaries between communities are no longer merely informational. They have become boundaries of trust.
At the same time, authority is being redistributed. Institutional prestige and traditional media no longer guarantee credibility. People increasingly seek validation from peers, familiar voices, and communities with which they identify.
The Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report 2026 illustrates this transformation: social media and video platforms have become central gateways to news, while overall trust in news stands at just 37%.
The intermediaries did not disappear, as many predicted in the early days of the internet. They changed. Algorithms, content creators, platforms, and increasingly artificial intelligence systems now mediate our access to information and influence which voices gain relevance. As researcher danah boyd suggests, social media is evolving into parasocial media, where perceived closeness to content creators can exist without genuine reciprocal relationships.
Yet there is a paradox at the heart of this transformation: our desire to belong to something larger than ourselves has not disappeared. If anything, it may be growing stronger.
Consider the extraordinary appeal of major concerts, pop music, hip-hop, music festivals, and packed football stadiums. These experiences do not necessarily bring different tribes together. They often create or reinforce powerful communities of their own. But their appeal reveals something important: an enduring hunger for collective experiences, shared rituals, and a sense of belonging that gives meaning to our individual lives.
We may be retreating into smaller circles of trust while longing for opportunities to feel part of something much bigger.
For organizations, the implications go far beyond choosing new channels or adding influencers to their communication strategies.
First, we need to reconsider how we define effectiveness. Reach, frequency, and impressions remain relevant, but they are no longer sufficient. Reaching someone does not mean being believed. And visibility does not necessarily translate into trust.
What increasingly matters is the quality of the relationships we build: the conversations we enable, the understanding we create, and the connections we sustain over time.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, we should resist the temptation to respond to fragmentation solely through further segmentation. Adapting messages to different audiences is necessary, but hyper-segmentation risks reinforcing the very fragmentation we are trying to navigate: a different narrative for every tribe, with no common ground connecting them.
This is where multilayer narratives offer a promising strategic approach. Rather than developing separate stories for different audiences, organizations can build narrative architectures with multiple layers of meaning, levels of depth, and points of entry. Different communities may connect with different aspects of a story, while its underlying identity, values, and commitments remain consistent.
This is not about telling every audience what it wants to hear. It is about recognizing different concerns, identifying shared values, and building meaningful connections across perspectives. The challenge is to create narratives flexible enough to resonate with diverse audiences, yet coherent enough to preserve a recognizable identity. One shared story, multiple ways into it.
In a world of fragmented trust, institutions and brands seeking to grow while serving broad and diverse audiences have an opportunity to go beyond reaching individual communities and help create a broader sense of belonging.
So we are not in the business of speaking more effectively to each tribe, but in the quest of building narratives capable of recognizing differences without sacrificing our own identity or the possibility of creating shared meaning.
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