Sergio Amadeu da Silveira - Cidadania e Redes Digitais

eng
c i t i z e n s h i p a n d d i g i t a l n e t w o r k s
Transparency 1.0 Transparency 2.0
Incomplete: Citizens have access only to
limited information on public expenses.
Information on contracts, subsides, fees
or expenses are not open online and,
most of the times, cannot be collected.
Disperse: Certain citizens who visit various
agency sites or make requests of
public information may be able to gather
information on government expenses, including
contracts, subsides and reports
of special fees.
Tool for well informed “intruders”: Researchers
who know what they are seeking
and already understand the structure
of the government programs can seek in
the reports data buried under layers of
categories and jurisdictions.
130
Comprehensive: Portals with friendly interface
supply the citizens with the possibility
of seeking detailed information on
contracts, expenditures, subsides, fees
and expenses of the government.
Grouped: Citizens can search through all
government expenses in only one site.
Can be found with one click: Citizens can
search for data with a simple consultation
or browse through comprehensive
categories by common sense. They can
order the data on government expenses
by receivers, amounts, district, agency,
purpose or keyword.
Baxandall and Magnuson (2008) state that the possibility of making searches
in the Internet revolutionized accessibility and transparency of information, making
the individuals used to the ease of monitoring deliveries through the Internet,
checking minutes of cellular phone bills, purchasing shares in the Web and even
seeing satellite images or any street address. However, on the other hand, in the
case of monitoring government expenses, North-American citizens were “left in the
dark”(BAXANDALL and MAGNUSON, 2008:5).
The results of the research Public Attitudes Toward Government Accountability
and Transparency 13 , developed by Baxandall and Magnuson (2008), show that the
“citizens are anxious for Transparency 2.0”: 90% of the North-Americans believe
that they have the right to transparent information about how the government directs
its finances, 5% believe that the government of their state supplies comprehensive
financial information, and 30% already tried to find in the web information
on the financial management of the government of their state (BAXANDALL and
MAGNUSON, 2008:9).
13. Available at http://www.afacgfm.org/harrispoll2008.aspx. Accessed in Feb/2010.