Big Databases as New Sources of Information. Are “Big Date” the Future of Journalism?

Abstract

The essence of any device coupled to an IT network is the collection, processing and transmission of data. Along with technological progress, the amount of information and, above all, the possibilities of their collection and interpretation allowed exploration of the big data in the fields of science, which until recently were outside the margin of the socalled ‘data revolution’. Big data sets were initially used only by financial institutions. On their basis, mathematical economic and economic forecasts were determined. Nowadays, when the humanities are in the heat of criticism and the science is leading the science, the humanities begin to defend themselves and, like the exact sciences, begin to use new technologies. Within the humanities, data play a large role, which, if skilfully analyzed, allows predicting social phenomena. Data correlated with each other by data journalists become the beginning of new, unknown stories. The author in her text shows the role of data in the process of creating journalistic messages. The article not only presents data as a remedy for information overload, but also points to data journalism as the future in acquiring and generating information.