El desafío de la transparencia en la comunicación digitalun estudio de caso sobre las webs municipales de Galicia y Norte de Portugal

Resum

The advent of the Internet and social web tools has led to changes in social relations that have also affected the Public Services. The concept of transparency makes sense in the framework of a general need for a more open government, where networked citizens demand for more active participation in public affairs. This notion suggests a new relationship between the public administration and its citizens. Internet has opened new pathways to access information; however, such access needs to be measured. In this sense, transparency requires ratings and parameters to be quantified or measured. This study proposes a transparency ranking for municipalities with more than 30,000 inhabitants in the Galicia - North Portugal Euroregion. Thus, the study sample consists of a total of 44 websites of 32 Portuguese and 12 Spanish municipalities. The scorecard used evaluates the information provided by members of the municipality and other local governing bodies; information about the council itself (with special focus on economic transparency) and forms of communication on the website and social media. The analysis was conducted during the month of March 2015, as no municipal elections took place in any of the countries. The result is a ranking that compares municipal transparency, with detailed scores for each of the items in the scorecard.