Information and media literacy focused on citizenship: the use of government information to participate on democracy

Abstract

The Information and Communication Technologies enable the development of democratic societies when they allow access to information in different media and contexts. Hence, the access to government information is only the first step towards making people citizens, since it corroborates to the development of the democracy by allowing the population to know how to interpret and appropriate information to build knowledge. It is argued, therefore, that the process of the use of information is equivalent to the execution of citizenship, since it qualifies the individual to deal with different information transmitted by the media in the various spheres: social, political and professional. From this perspective, the present research aims to reflect on the relevance of Information and Media Competence for the construction of citizenship in democratic societies through online access to Brazilian governmental portals. The methodological procedures involve a bibliographical research about public policies, Brazil's access to information law and information competence. To be considered competent in information, the citizen must have the skills and abilities to use the information made available by the government. One thing that can not be ignored is the fact that online portals in Brazil still have obstacles that contribute to the inefficiency of political transparency in the country. Therefore, being competent in information is fundamental to appropriate the government information disclosed, making the individual critical in the selection, retention and dissemination, as well as capable of interpreting the data provided in society and the ideologies that govern the sources of information.