Web Accessibility and Transparency for Accountability

Abstract

Local government is a political power close to citizens and constitutes a mainstay of democracy. Because of their mission, the guidelines promoted by local government must be embedded in strategies of accountability and public communication. In that sense, it is worthwhile to ask if “local government accountability is being an inclusive concept?” In Portugal, transparency of municipalities is being accessed through the Municipality Transparency Index (MTI). The study aim was to investigate whatever MTI measures accessibility. This study examined the availability of local government information on the website for a sample of 86 Portuguese municipalities and presented the results of a quantitative evaluation of the web accessibility based on W3C guidelines, using an automated tool. Based on the main concepts of transparency and accessibility, it explored static association between MTI and web accessibility. This study contributed to the discussion about transparency as a social value and is of great importance for local policy makers and civic movements in favor of disabled people.