Dual Transparency in the Self-Presentation of Brazilian Civil Monitoring Initiatives on Public Transparency

This article reflects on Brazilian civil monitoring initiatives that address public transparency, situating them within the broader phenomenon of civil monitoring that has emerged in recent decades and its implications for the media system. Descriptively, it analyses how these initiatives, discursively anchored in defence of the public interest and the demand for transparency, disclose (or do not) their own formative and operational elements, a hypothesis referred to as “dual transparency”. To this end, the article provides a theoretical overview of public transparency within democratic systems, with a particular focus on the Brazilian context. It explores civil monitoring and the challenges faced by initiatives in establishing legitimacy, as well as their interactions with the media system. It then analyses six contemporary Brazilian initiatives on the subject, based on a review of their websites for discourses on four categories: (a) origin, (b) team, (c) funding, and (d) partnerships. The article reveals that these initiatives apply the concept of “dual transparency” inadequately and inconsistently, reflecting their inherent monitoring nature. Specifically, they often fail to disclose information about their sources of funding and expenditures, resulting in opaque systems where private interests may be concealed.