Transparency and social control

the Information Science in the Fight Against Corruption

Abstract

Access to information is constitutionally mandated in Brazil and aims to promote government transparency to guarantee society the exercise of social control as an informational practice. From this perspective, is it possible for Information Science to fulfill its technical-professional vocation and its social role in studies on transparency, social control, and the fight against corruption? The hypothesis is that Information Science has developed a social paradigm of an informational science nature, in which access to information is understood as a human phenomenon, impacting the development of technologies beyond digital environments, modifying them according to users' needs, assisting them in the fight against corruption and social change. The objectives are: a) to identify the legislation that guarantees transparency in the country; b) to present social control in public policies as an informational practice; c) to demonstrate how this theoretical logic can be summarized by the equation: T2 + CS + AI = - C e; d) to operationalize this equation in a case study. The methodology was exploratory research with analysis of legal documents, conceptual analysis of the evolution of the field of Information Science, and a case study. The results are: 1) the advancement of legislation on access to information and transparency allows; 2) the informational practice of social control, which enables; 3) presenting CI with increasing social responsibility in the fight against corruption. It is concluded that there is a need to expand empirical studies to demonstrate this theoretical dynamic and its equation in CI.