Least common multiple of transparency

Abstract

What is transparency? What does a definition of transparency should include? Transparency is a multidisciplinary and heterogeneous concept and this heterogeneity make difficult its understanding. This paper examines definitions of transparency from the point of view of communication theory, identifying orientations regarding the basic elements of communication: issuer, message, channel and receiver. This approach allows finding shortcomings in the definitions of transparency that have been reviewed and, forgetting about the areas in which diverse terms of transparency are used, this approach allows glimpsing a way to identify the elements that an ideal definition of transparency should have.

Keywords

• transparency
• transparency overview
• communication theory