Open Data Governance as a Theoretical Concept: A Stakeholder and Institutional Analysis (original) (raw)

The primary purpose of the study in this chapter, which methodologically relies on stakeholder and institutional analyses, is to comprehend theoretically the concept of open data through its understanding as a multidimensional and multi-institutional networking phenomenon. The diffusion of this intrinsically political rather than technocratic idea all over the world affects communication processes in many sectors of public life, providing new conceptual platforms to enhance civic engagement, direct participation and collaboration of various actors, which operate in the e-government area and transform traditional channels of political networking via new information technologies not only in interactions between main stakeholders of digital communication such as public agents, citizens and businesses but also between such new active players in the area as non-governmental organizations, independent developers, intermediaries and even mass media and, more importantly, between peers themselves in both public and private sectors of economy and, correspondingly, equally at global, national and local institutional levels of governance.