The Big Data Effect: The Quest for a New Understanding of the Public Sphere

• Published in: Hermeneia (Iași.) 2024-01 (32), p.64-73
• Main Author: Grădinaru, Camelia
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Big Data; Data analysis; Epistemology; Ethics; Internet; Open data; Prediction markets; Public sector; Social networks; Transparency
• ISSN: 1453-9047; 2069-8291

Many directives for public sector data resources are aimed at regulating the information produced by public entities (The White House 2012, Australian Government 2013, The Government of Japan 2013, The European Parliament and the Council of the European Union 2019). Even if Big Data "holds tremendous potential for policy analysis" (Schintler and Kulkarni 2014, 347) and could lead to more informed policymaking, better decisions, and greater transparency and efficiency, "government organisations seem to still be in an orientation or contemplation phase regarding Big Data" (Klievink et al. 2017, 268), in a state of "infancy" (Desouza and Jacob 2017, 1044), or just at a "programatic level" (Desouza and Jacob 2017, 1052). From the theoretical point of view, the definitions of Big Data are scarce; the articles focused merely on characteristics, insights, applications, and challenges for the public sector. [...]defining Big Data is not a popular topic in current research" (Fredriksson et al. 2017, 45). Constraints on Big Data may be summarized as: the lack of prompt political decisions needed to benefit from Big Data in the public sector; the lack of training for personnel in the necessary skills for the collection, interpretation, and archiving of Big Data; the absence of a standard set of solutions for this field; and the lack of specific resources (Munné 2016, 199).