Transparent information and access to citizen participation on municipal websites Núria Simelio-Solà; Carme Ferré-Pavia; Francisco-Javier Herrero-Gutiérrez How to cite this article: Simelio-Solà, Núria; Ferré-Pavia, Carme; Herrero-Gutiérrez, Francisco-Javier (2021). “Transparent information and access to citizen participation on municipal websites”. Profesional de la información, v. 30, n. 2, e300211. https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2021.mar.11 Manuscript received on September 2nd 2020 Accepted on October 28th 2020 Núria Simelio-Solà Carme Ferré-Pavia https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9220-5155 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7258-6376 Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Facultat de Ciències de la Comunicació Facultat de Ciències de la Comunicació Campus UAB, Edifici I Campus UAB, Edifici I 08193 Bellaterra (Barcelona), Spain 08193 Bellaterra (Barcelona), Spain nuria.simelio.sola@uab.cat carme.ferre@uab.cat Francisco-Javier Herrero-Gutiérrez https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1362-7406 Universidad de Salamanca Facultad de Ciencias Sociales Depto. de Sociología y Comunicación Campus Miguel de Unamuno, Edificio FES. 37007 Salamanca, Spain javiherrero82@usal.es * Abstract This study analyses the information and tools for citizen participation on the institutional websites of local bodies to improve participation in the management of local resources in a context following the introduction of Spain’s Transpa- rency Law. The method is based on applying 14 indicators to analyse the institutional websites of 605 municipalities that have over 10,000 residents, located in 9 autonomous communities of the Spanish state. The main results show how the institutional information offered on the websites of the councils analysed does not follow journalistic criteria in terms of accountability, meaning that citizens’ decisions regarding their local governments cannot be based on precise, reliable information. In this regard, in this study we have confirmed that council websites publish very little information on the activity of the opposition or on the plenary sessions, debates and agreements, but do publish information on the activity of the government. Furthermore, they do not make use of web resources for citizen participation, which impedes the transparent, collaborative management of political processes between leaders and citizens. Nonetheless, the results show how political and technical managers are not averse to change if they have access to guidance and incentives to improve the management of information and participation on municipal websites. Keywords Public communication; Citizen participation; Transparency; Municipal websites; Internet; Political information; Indica- tors; Accountability. Funding This work has been financed by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) [CSO2015-64568-R Mineco/Feder]. e300211 Profesional de la información, 2021, v. 30, n. 2. e-ISSN: 1699-2407 1 Núria Simelio-Solà; Carme Ferré-Pavia; Francisco-Javier Herrero-Gutiérrez 1. Introduction The first goal of this article is to analyse whether local governments take advantage of the potentials of web 2.0 and social media to provide high-quality information and encourage e-participation, bearing in mind the requirements esta- blished by Spanish Law no. 19/2013 of 9 December on Transparency, access to public information and good government. It is believed that information offered by public and government institutions is a basic right in democratic societies and that the internet provides instruments to facilitate new forms of governance and citizen participation (Bertot; Jaeger; Grimes, 2010) at a time of international expansion of legislation on transparency and greater awareness about citizens- hip in this field. The information that the public administration offers is a basic right that should come from transparency and good go- vernment (Batista, 2010) and “transparency has come to be a key instrument in the disclosure of public information and in enhancing the ac- countability of public administrations” (Garrido-Rodríguez; Zafra-Gómez; López-Hernández, 2017, p. 913). The concept of transparency is defined as the possibi- lity that citizens have to access any type of information Public communication and journalistic in any format that is generated by organisations in the information should therefore be basic course of their work (Giménez-Chornet, 2012). Further- instruments for building a participatory more, it must provide accountability to citizens and also democracy with equal opportunities the responsibility of the leaders themselves, as a basic element of democratic societies where it should be possible to evaluate the actions and decisions of politicians to avoid misuse of power (Cameron, 2004). Public communication and journalistic information should therefore be basic instru- ments for building a participatory democracy with equal opportunities. With regard to transparency and freedom of information in the legal framework, there are some countries that are pio- neers in enacting laws on these concepts, such as the United States and France (1966 and 1978, respectively) but also countries with a long democratic record that have taken much longer to do so. Examples include Belgium, which has not passed a transparency law since 1994; the United Kingdom, since 2000; and Switzerland, since 2004 (Ackerman; Sando- val, 2005). This has also coincided with the fact that several international organisations have promoted transparency in recent years, connecting it with benefits regarding the expansion of democracy and good government (United Nations, 2000; European Commission, 2001; 2010) with different levels of transparency between each other (Navarro-Galera et al., 2017). In Spain, transparency and accountability was regulated by the national government in Law 19/2013 of 9 December, which came into force throughout the country two years later. As has happened in other countries that have hesitated to apply these freedom of information laws (Grassler, 2018), the law in Spain has included important limitations, mostly regarding who is considered able to request information, and does not include the right to access public information as part of the fundamental right to freedom of information. Moreover, the first studies regarding analysis of public infor- mation on municipal websites after the transparency law was passed in Spain show that neither a qualitative nor quan- titative improvement has been seen in comparison with analyses from before the adoption of the law (Moreno-Sardà; Molina-Rodríguez-Navas; Simelio-Solà, 2017). Nevertheless, the Spanish transparency law has undoubtedly made an important step forward and is a response to demands for legislation to help safeguard the right to access information (Simelio-Solà et al., 2017) and drive a change in behaviour and attitudes among municipal governments. Also, the law’s wording places particular emphasis on citizen political participation (Molina-Rodríguez-Navas, 2018). 2. Public information for participation and ICT In the debate on democratic public communication, as well as aspects regarding the need to transparently provide infor- mation on management, another key concept is finding mechanisms for citizen participation. The internet and related platforms combined with e-government, social media, new technologies, transparency policies and citizens’ desire for a transparent government have created new opportunities that have the potential to establish a new form of government and citizen participation in building democratic policies (Bertot; Jaeger; Grimes, 2010). Nonetheless, at the municipal level, although most local governments are using web 2.0 and social media tools to increase transparency and dialogue between governments and citizens, the potential of using web 2.0 to boost e-participation by local governments is not being fully harnessed (Bonsón et al., 2012; Rollnert-Liern, 2015). Several studies mention the use of social media by muni- The Spanish transparency law has un- cipal organisations, dealing with the contexts of Catalo- nia (Simelio-Solà; Molina-Rodríguez-Navas, 2014), Cas- doubtedly made an important step tilla y León (Herrero-Gutiérrez et al., 2017) and Portugal forward and is a response to demands (Cardoso-de-Miranda; Muñoz-Cañavate, 2015). These for legislation to help safeguard the right show that the advantages of digital participation have to access information e300211 Profesional de la información, 2021, v. 30, n. 2. e-ISSN: 1699-2407 2 Transparent information and access to citizen participation on municipal websites not been used, and instead a one-directional model has The advantages of digital participa- been adopted in which managers of the organisations’ tion have not been used, and instead a networks simply publish links to government news sto- ries and do not encourage dialogue with citizens. one-directional model has been adopted in which managers of the organisations’ A study by Gandía, Marrahí and Huguet (2016) measu- ring the use of web 2.0 by Spanish municipal councils networks simply publish links to govern- discovered similar results when analysing whether the ment news stories and do not encourage use of 2.0 tools and social media has improved in com- dialogue with citizens parison with previous web 1.0 use of digital transparen- cy. These authors come to the conclusion that the use of web 2.0 and information about transparency by Spanish local authorities has been fundamentally ornamental and concentrates on promotional features, conclusions that were initia- lly reached in the previous decade (Gandía; Archidona, 2008). The conclusions were similar to those arrived at by a study authored by Pina, Torres and Royo (2010) on how the web- sites of European Union local governments are implementing ICT initiatives to bring citizens and administrations closer together. Other authors also remarked the importance of technology in this field: “This technology can help to increase transparency, financial information and citizen participation” (Moreno-En- guix; Gras-Gil; Hernández-Fernández, 2019, p. 178). The authors state that the internet’s greater capacity for spreading information to improve accountability and facilitate participation has not been harnessed by local governments in the European Union. Even in 2017, Bearfield and Bowman (2017) show how, on the municipal council websites analysed, it is easier to find budget and financial data than truly accessible information. 3. Method design The method used was designed in 2012 based on a web platform created by the research team of which the authors of this article are part: https://www.mapainfoparticipa.com/index/home The aim is to evaluate the information offered by Spanish municipal councils on their institutional websites and diagnose the main difficulties arising to generate transparent, high-quality public information and make proposals to improve the websites, as this is a determining factor in this type of study (Fernández-Falero, 2017). The evaluation is made based on 52 indicators formulated as questions and organised into two large groups centred on the information offered by municipal councils’ websites about the institution and about citizen participation. In this ar- ticle, we present the results of an analysis performed in 2019 on the “Information for participation” group of indicators. These indicators can be found in the results section of this article. When interpreting the results, we need to distinguish between transparency itself –which in Spain has its own law (Law 19/2013, of December 9, on transparency, access to public information and good governance) in addition to another set of laws established by the Autonomous Communities– and, on the other hand, citizen participation and guidelines for providing good information, which do not have specific legislation as such, although certain references may be found in the existing legislation. The concept of quality information is multifaceted, although it usually refers to the fulfilment of indicators (Herrera-Viedma et al., 2006). Therefore, it should be taken into account that this study focuses especially on this participation and on how to focus information so that citizens can participate in the democratic public debate. In this regard, we need to be aware when interpreting these results that the indicators addressed and gathered in the Infoparticipa Map are broader than the national and regional legislation itself. The analysis presented was carried out in June 2018. Its validity was ensured by performing the analysis using a single coding guide and a person on the team carrying out quality control. Once the analysis was complete, the results were distributed among the technical and political decision-makers of the municipalities analysed so they could compare data, and the results in each case could be revised in accordance with their feedback, if necessary. This ensures the method is valid and reliable. As well as the main goal of checking how municipal corporate websites provide information regarding participation, other goals included determining whether there are differences in information connected to the number of residents in the municipality, the sex of the mayor, the autonomous community, and the political party that governs the municipality. The results presented in this article were processed using the IBM SPSS Statistics 23.0 programme. The sample for this article is composed of 605 municipalities with more than 10,000 residents from a selection of auto- nomous communities in Spain, distributed in 9 different Spanish regions: Andalusia (154 municipalities); Catalonia (121); Valencia Community (97); Galicia (54); Community of Madrid (51); Canaries (42); Basque Country (42); Region of Murcia (31) and Aragon (13). e300211 Profesional de la información, 2021, v. 30, n. 2. e-ISSN: 1699-2407 3 Núria Simelio-Solà; Carme Ferré-Pavia; Francisco-Javier Herrero-Gutiérrez Before the analysis, the sample was re-coded by diffe- Local governments’ communications rent variables to create a total of 3 groups by population: offices act as spokespeople for govern- 10,000-50,000 residents, 50,001-100,000 residents and more than 100,000 residents (Table 3). It is clear that the ment teams and not as communications number of municipalities in each group increases in step managers for the institution or munici- with the number of residents. pality itself For demographic and historical reasons, there are communities that have a large number of municipalities and others that have a smaller number. There are therefore differences between autonomous communities in which a large number of municipalities have been analysed (for example, Andalusia, with 154), and others with a small number (for example, Aragon, with only 12 municipalities). The municipalities with 10,000-50,0000 residents were about 80% of the sample (489). Only about 8% of the sample had more than 100,000 residents (50). The autonomous communities in the sample were chosen on the basis of a representativeness that took into account various aspects of Spain’s particular nature. Thus, we selected the most populated communities (Madrid, Andalusia and Catalonia) and others with a low population density such as Aragon, communities with the largest cities in Spain, including those hosting the capital, historical communities with their own co-official language (Catalonia, The Basque Country, Galicia, Valencia) and others with Spanish as the only language, Mediterranean, Atlantic, Cantabrian peninsular communities and one island community (The Canary Islands), and finally, communities with cities governed by national parties and others by regional or nationalist parties. 4. Results Considering the indicators on citizen information and participation, the following data (Table 1) deal with the extent to which indicators regarding information provided on the municipality and the management of collective resources are fulfilled. We can see that, while news stories on government actions and its management are very common, with a high level of information on news related to the government (93.1%), there is a small amount of information on news related to the opposition (18%). Therefore, one of the most significant results of our research, referring to good information and citizen participation, is that local governments’ communications offices act as spokespeople for government teams and not as communications managers for the institution or municipality itself. This, as well as making the opposition invisible, also stops citizens from being able to join the public debate on the management of resources and impedes their participation in a context of real knowledge, since they do not have all the information relating to the local government. Moreover, news stories related to the government itself are mostly based on information regarding positive aspects and statements by political leaders. In a context where local media mostly use institutional sources for their information, this means that the information received by citizens is even more opaque, removing the accountability needed in a democratic society. Table 1. Indicators on information provided about the municipality and management of collective resources 10,000-50,000 50,001-100,000 More than 100,000 Total residents residents residents Descriptor indicator Number Number Number % % % % of cases of cases of cases The website publishes news stories, information and/or opinions on the actions of members of the government 422 86.3 64 97.0 48 96 93.1 related to the government’s management The website publishes news stories, information and/ or opinions on the actions of members of the opposi- 38 7.8 16 24.2 11 22 18.0 tion and/or political groups related to the government’s management The website publishes news stories on proceedings in the plenary, motions submitted by different political groups, 107 21.9 23 34.8 22 44 33.5 debates and agreements The website publishes historical information on the 383 78.3 49 74.2 39 78 76.8 municipality Information is given on the current status of the municipa- lity: data on the municipal district, the registered popula- 247 50.5 38 57.6 34 68 58.7 tion, social diversity, economic and cultural activities A calendar of municipal and citizen events is offered on 381 77.9 61 92.4 49 98 89.4 the website The website publishes contact information for the person in charge of press, information and/or communication at 170 34.8 34 51.5 33 66.0 50.7 the organisation e300211 Profesional de la información, 2021, v. 30, n. 2. e-ISSN: 1699-2407 4 Transparent information and access to citizen participation on municipal websites Following this line, the levels of information on news sto- Among municipalities where all the in- ries relating to proceedings in plenaries is low (33.5%). dicators related to information for parti- Although it is true that many municipal councils upload videos of their plenaries, what transparency is really cipation on municipalities’ websites are about is informing citizens clearly, simply, precisely, brie- fulfilled (14), there is triple the number fly and intelligibly, and watching a long video does not of municipalities where the mayor is a appear to achieve that goal. woman than those where the mayor is a The fields with high fulfilment deal with both appropria- man, 6.9% and 2.2%, respectively te historical information about the municipality (76.8%) and data on the calendar of municipal and citizen activities (almost 90%). In contrast, the status of the population and its socio-demographic variables is only moderately represented (58.7%). The data broken down by demographic weight of the municipalities reveals that the contact person for press is mentio- ned insufficiently in low-population settlements (34.8%) but sufficiently in municipalities of more than 100,000 (68%). The indicators relating to tools offered for citizen participation are presented below (Table 2). What stands out the most is that the larger the municipality’s population, the more indicators are fulfilled. For example, the indicator “Information is given on the website on the regulations for citizen participation or other related rules” has a fulfilment rate of less than 50% in municipalities of fewer than 50,000 residents, but 96% in those with more than 100,000. This is related to the amount of economic, human and logistic resources available to municipalities. This situation is similar to what happens with other indicators, specifically information regarding participation mecha- nisms (territorial councils, town councils, sector-based councils), with a 44-point difference between the least and most populated municipalities and, consequently, this is also the case for the minutes of the meetings held by these councils or mechanisms. Furthermore, fulfilment increases in all fields in step with population. Only the indicator for information on associations and local bodies is fulfilled slightly more often in settlements of 50,000-100,000 residents (62.8%) then larger ones (60%). Overall, the areas that are weakest are those regarding participation mechanisms and their operations and services offered by the body. It is notable that less than half of municipalities of less than 50,000 residents do not include infor- mation about citizen participation regulations on their websites, so we can deduce that this aspect is not regulated in their municipalities. This contrasts with municipalities of more than 100,000 residents, which in 96% of cases have rules and regulations regarding participation. In general, we can see from the indicators in Table 2 that despite the provisions of Spain’s 2013 Transparency Law, the new mechanisms for participation in local governments that can be provided by the internet and web 2.0 are still not widely used, and the most fulfilled indicator deals with old open administration models allowing citizens to make sugges- tions or complaints via forms –something other authors alluded to at the time (Cárcaba-García; García-García, 2010)– but do not have a real level of participation that the new legislation and technology available could allow. Table 2. Indicators of the tools on offer for citizen participation Up to 50,000 50,001-100,000 More than 100,000 residents residents residents Descriptor indicator Number Number Number % % % of cases of cases of cases Information is given on the website on the regulations for citizen parti- 226 46.2 49 74.2 46 96.0 cipation or other related rules Information is given on the website about other participation me- chanisms or bodies: territorial councils, town councils, sector-based 165 33.7 33 50.0 39 78.0 councils, etc. The minutes of meetings held by the other participation mechanisms 46 9.4 15 22.7 17 34.0 or bodies mentioned in indicator 47 are published The website includes a directory of bodies and associations in the 208 42.5 45 68.2 31 62.0 municipality and/or a register of interest groups, if applicable The website offers instruments for consultation and/or participation 160 32.7 36 54.5 37 74.0 on current matters of local interest The website offers a list of the services rendered and commitments to 26 5.3 9 13.6 18 36.0 citizens The website provides instruments to evaluate services and to submit 284 58.1 49 74.2 43 86.0 complaints or suggestions on how they are run Taking into account the results by profile of the municipality (autonomous community, sex of the mayor and political party), firstly, regarding gender differences, the municipalities whose mayor is a man have an indicator fulfilment percen- tage of 44.3% and those whose mayor is a woman have an indicator fulfilment percentage of 48.7%. e300211 Profesional de la información, 2021, v. 30, n. 2. e-ISSN: 1699-2407 5 Núria Simelio-Solà; Carme Ferré-Pavia; Francisco-Javier Herrero-Gutiérrez This slightly more positive result among women Table 3. Fulfilment of indicators by sex of the mayor mayors is more significant if we break it down Number of Sex into percentages by number of indicators fulfi- the indica- Total lled (Table 3). In this regard, the most interes- tors fulfilled Man Woman ting information for establishing future hypo- n 1 1 2 theses is that among municipalities where all 0 % 0.2% 0.6% 0.3% the indicators related to information for parti- cipation on municipalities’ websites are fulfilled n 6 2 8 1 (14), there is triple the number of municipalities % 1.3% 1.3% 1.3% where the mayor is a woman than those where n 26 11 37 2 the mayor is a man, 6.9% and 2.2%, respectively. % 5.8% 6.9% 6.1% If we carefully observe the level of transparen- n 44 15 59 3 cy by autonomous communities analysed, the % 9.9% 9.4% 9.8% highest number of municipalities with an ave- n 59 9 68 rage of more than 70% fulfilment can be found 4 % 13.2% 5.7% 11.2% in Catalonia, where nearly half of municipalities n 57 33 90 have a fulfilment rate of over 75%. At the other 5 end of the scale, we find the Canaries, with only % 12.8% 20.8% 14.9% a 31.4% fulfilment of the indicators. For further n 79 17 96 6 context, the Catalan Transparency Law affecting % 17.7% 10.7% 15.9% institutions and the Canarian version of the law n 57 18 75 both date from 2014, so we cannot infer that 7 % 12.8% 11.3% 12.4% it is a longer or shorter implementation time n 31 10 41 that makes a difference, but rather the will and 8 effort to do so. % 7.0% 6.3% 6.8% n 26 10 36 This, though, may be related to the fact that 9 % 5.8% 6.3% 6.0% development in the research project of which this article is part began in Catalonia in 2012, n 20 3 23 10 and since 2013 a prize called the Sello Infopar- % 4.5% 1.9% 3.8% ticipa (the Info-participation Seal) has been n 11 4 15 11 awarded based on reports drawn up by the re- % 2.5% 2.5% 2.5% search team. After each evaluation, the results n 7 7 14 are sent to political and technical staff at mu- 12 % 1.6% 4.4% 2.3% nicipal councils and these have the chance to be advised on how to improve the information n 12 8 20 13 on their municipal websites. This has shown it- % 2.7% 5.0% 3.3% self to be a way of successfully moving forward n 10 11 21 and fulfilling the indicators and shows how both 14 % 2.2% 6.9% 3.5% political decision-makers and technical staff are n 446 159 605 willing to improve their information if they re- Total ceive guidance and support in these fields and % 100% 100% 100% if they receive incentives in the form of positive Table 4. Average number of indicators fulfilled by political party information about them in the media and from academia. Percentage of Political party indicators fulfilled For the other regions, Murcia, Aragon, the Va- PSC-CP (Socialist Party of Catalonia) 75.9% lencian Community and the Basque Country PDeCAT (Catalan European Democratic Party) 72.0% fulfilled an average of 46-41% of indicators, and Esquerra Republicana (Republican Left of Catalonia) 68.8% only Galicia and Andalusia reduced this level to 35%. PNV (Basque Nationalist Party) 43.6% Izquierda Unida (United Left) 42.9% Another aspect observed was a comparison by Compromís (Commitment Coalition) 42.5% political party, also linking them to the level of fulfilment (Table 4). Once again, we have con- Bildu (Basque Counrty Unite) 41.3% sidered the importance of advice and incenti- Partido Popular (People’s Party) 39.1% ves to improve transparency. The parties that, PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party) 39.1% regardless of the number of municipalities they Coalición Canaria (Canarian Coalition) 33.8% govern, achieve high levels of fulfilment (PSC- PSdeG-PSOE (Socialist Party of Galicia) 27.9% CP, PDeCAT and Esquerra Republicana) are par- Others 44.3% ties that belong to the Catalonia autonomous community. If we observe it from a left-right Total average 43.5% e300211 Profesional de la información, 2021, v. 30, n. 2. e-ISSN: 1699-2407 6 Transparent information and access to citizen participation on municipal websites standpoint (conservative or progressive), there are no The websites of the Spanish municipal major differences, something that is particularly clear if councils act as institutional agencies for we note that the two largest national parties have the same rate of fulfilment: 39.1%. Similarly, we find social the mayors, silencing opposition and democratic parties (PSC-CP and Esquerra Republicana) exercising political control over the sto- and a conservative party (PDeCAT) among the parties ries published that have the best results. 5. Conclusions and discussion One of the most notable features in the analysis of the results is how the information that Spanish municipal councils’ institutional websites offer is not based on journalistic criteria. Instead, these websites act as institutional agencies for the mayors, silencing opposition and exercising political control over the stories published. The research therefore confirms the data in a study by Manfredi-Sánchez, Corcoy-Rius and Herranz-de-la-Casa (2017) on journalistic criteria in publishing news stories on Spanish municipal websites. Like these authors, we start from the basis that good public information should follow journalistic criteria that are far removed from political control over the news. At the same time, it should also provide alternative sources such as those from the opposition and make the information intelligible to the public. Thus, “public communication must understand that the size of the populations does not matter, but rather the abili- ty to provide concrete information of public interest that promotes the political, social and cultural objectives that journalism is committed to in open societies” (Manfredi-Sánchez; Corcoy-Rius; Herranz-de-la-Casa, 2017, p. 413). This means that citizens’ decisions regarding local governments cannot be based on precise, reliable information to allow for accountability and good government. It is therefore particularly relevant how the political parties that lead the municipal government publish news about the members that are part of the institution and “forget” to publish news stories about opposition parties. This allows these parties to gain notoriety and potentially try to increase that benefit by making the opposition invisible. That lack of balance also indicates partisan information with little pluralist, democratic tradition and goes against the deontological codes of journalism based on ethical principles shared by the journalism profession in that they present themselves as defenders of freedom of expression and citizens’ right to information (Cruz-Álvarez and Suárez-Villegas, 2012). In the group of results about information on participation tools and management, what stands out is that there are areas of information that should be improved, such as transcriptions of and information about plenary sessions, the location of the municipality or the publication of contact details for the people in charge of communication so that they can receive feedback from citizens. As for participation, it is clear that fulfilment is higher the larger the population of the municipality, which shows how a lack of economic, technical and human resources in smaller municipalities stops them from improving transparency le- vels and implementing tools to encourage citizen participation. From this standpoint, the findings coincide with those of other researchers, such as Torpe and Nielsen (2004), who attributed differences observed in digital communications be- tween authorities and citizens to population size rather than the political persuasion of the government. Several The political parties that lead the mu- pieces of research reinforce the view that transparency in communication brings trust to institutions and impro- nicipal government publish news about ves their reputations, something that can curb detach- the members that are part of the institu- ment from politics and public life (López-López et al., tion and “forget” to publish news stories 2018; Porumbescu, 2015) at a time of disaffection with about opposition parties politics in many countries. The poor overall results regarding tools for citizen participation reflect how web resources are not being used to their full potential to encourage new relationship dynamics with citizens, as confirmed by other research in the field (Bonsón et al., 2012). This means we can suggest that other strategies are needed for the use of web 2.0 and other digital tools in general that are not only based on their technological characteristics. They should allow for more active citizen initiatives involving the collective creation of public information and participation in the management of political processes with transparency and collaboration between government and citizens. As the study by Panagiotopoulos, Bigdeli and Sams (2014) shows, there have been successful experiments with collaboration between citizens and local governments using social media, where not only can citizens be mobilised by local authorities, but they can also actively encourage actions launched by citizens. In the relationship between fulfilment of the indicators analysed and other variables, the first conclusion we should reflect upon is that the level of fulfilment was slightly higher in municipalities governed by mayors who are women. This data confirms the findings of Ferraz-Esteves-Araujo and Tejedo-Romero (2016) by observing a positive effect of female government on improving transparency. e300211 Profesional de la información, 2021, v. 30, n. 2. e-ISSN: 1699-2407 7 Núria Simelio-Solà; Carme Ferré-Pavia; Francisco-Javier Herrero-Gutiérrez Different results show how the community most enga- Spain still has a long way to go to achieve ged in transparently managing its websites is Catalonia, better transparency on municipal web- regardless of the political party governing each place. As previously indicated, Catalonia is the community whe- sites, and the new legislation on trans- re the overall project to improve municipal information parency does not seem to have helped transparency began, with the spread of a seal of quality improve it and advice from researchers to fulfil the indicators. These results also show us how political and technical decision-makers are not against improving their transparency if they are offered guidance. However, Spain still has a long way to go to achieve better transparency on municipal web- sites, and the new legislation on transparency does not seem to have helped improve it. Therefore, a change in routine and internal communication processes is needed to advance communication transparency and so that local govern- ments can offer tools and resources for citizen participation. 6. References Ackerman, John M.; Sandoval, Irma-Eréndira (2005). Leyes de acceso a la información en el mundo. México: Instituto Federal de Acceso a la Información Pública. https://rendiciondecuentas.org.mx/leyes-de-acceso-a-la-informacion-en-el-mundo-por-john-m-ackerman-irma-e-sandoval Batista, Carmen-Lúcia (2010). “As dimensões da informação pública: transparência, acesso e comunicação”. 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