El Poder en las Manos de la Ciudadanía Transparencia Institucional , Participación Ciudadana e Información Pública

This work studies the quality and transparency in the information and communication that is issued through the websites of the Municipalities of Ecuador. With these data, a comparison is made between the Spanish case, a process that has been applied for more than five years, and the Ecuadorian case, whose process began in 2016.The aim is to carry out an evaluation and analysis of the information that appears on the institutional web pages of the municipalities of Ecuador, based on a series of indicators taken and adapted from the Infoparticipa Map project of Spain. These indicators were reviewed in order, based on their application, to determine to what extent the information that appears on said web pages corresponds to what Ecuadorian law requires regarding access to public information, transparency, and citizen participation. That is why the research delimits, through the indicators, the evaluation of the published information that corresponds to the legal requirements. As the indicators and methodology of the Map Infoparticipa project of Spain (http://mapainfoparticipa. com) are taken to be applied in the web pages of the municipalities of Ecuador, this study is also an adaptation of this methodology to Ecuador, so which also includes indicators on other aspects, such as news analysis. In the same way as in Spain, in Ecuador it is proposed to promote improvements. The research takes place at a time when communication has new tools that offer greater ease in the circulation of information and multiple possibilities for the development of intercommunication capacities. This resulted in people, communities and, fundamentally, public and private institutions using resources such as the Internet, web pages and social networks to offer information and reach all those who are considered likely to receive the information issued by each organization (Martínez, 2011).Today's society is going through the development of communications, institutions require and use these tools to carry out their activities and, on the part of citizens, there is a growing demand for immediate access to the information they request. Based on these needs, different instruments are created to facilitate the availability and access to information by society. For this reason, communication has become a powerful work tool for institutions and demand, pressure and influence by citizens who seek to be constantly informed. Given these characteristics of contemporary societies, organizations that influence society through communication -whether large private conglomerates, social organizations or public administration entities- have the responsibility to reflect on transparency and quality of the information they put into circulation, as well as the possibility of offering citizens data that foster the construction of more humane and democratic societies (Moreno, Molina & Simelio, 2017).In a society permeated by communication, the organizations that participate in the development of comm.