Big Data&Open Data in journalism: role, meaning, trends

Abstract

New digital data formats — Big & Open Data — are transforming the modern model of professional social communication and changing the parameters of communication. The emergence of new formats of digital information, including big data, provides new ways to search, process, analyze, present and visualize it in journalism. These changes should be reflected in the texts of journalistic materials. However, there is reason to believe that the impact of large and open data on the structure of journalistic materials in the leading domestic media remains minimal. Data journalism is still in its infancy, being studied based on observation and interviewing techniques. Comprehensive studies of data sources of data journalism publications are still lacking. In leading publications, the number of materials based on open data and published on a regular basis as separate projects or in specialized sections is growing. However, despite its prevalence, this phenomenon is still controversial both among practicing journalists and academics. The practices of data journalism, which are not sufficiently systematized, are not comprehensively reflected in the scientific literature. Existing research in this area is at the intersection of different scientific fields and concepts and is interdisciplinary. However, many media outlets are already starting to work with numbers and databases, literally finding stories in them for publication. It can be stated that today a community of people is emerging who call themselves data journalists, which is significantly different from the community of experts in the field of computer journalism. This new community has more innovative ways of providing data, storytelling, and final reporting, combining the deeply analytical and critical approaches of the computer and visual journalism community.