Open Data Within Government and Society's Interaction

In the past decade the world’s more developed countries have been working towards more open governments, aiming to allow its people higher public control over all the main governmental bodies’ activity and better access to state data that can be used in the interest of the people’s commercial, social and research work. It is safe to say that today open data has become one of the key issues on the agenda of the world’s most advanced economies. Open data is supposed to be used largely by apps and services’ developers who see open data as a great source material for their work, as well researchers who are capable of doing deep socio-economic and scientific researches based on open data, and the last but definitely not least – by journalists. In our opinion, it is the journalists who play a very important mediator role between a government and society, and who can increase social significance of open data. That is why we took a decision to look at the sphere of journalism to see how actively and rationally open data is used there. If a journalist applies open data in the right way, when working on a particular issue, it may allow a much deeper understanding of it. The created materials, based on open data, are likely to encourage solutions of state issues thanks to deep analysis and demonstration of actual tendencies. It is also giving people a chance to make a more informed choice, when it comes to the received state services as well as allowing them to get greater control over the standards for which they are eligible. To improve and better this practice of open data use, it is necessary to be constantly following and be aware of the state it is presently in, which is what we are going to look into detail in this research work.