Use of open data in public relations practices: A comparative analysis on Istanbul Metropolitan, London and New York Municipalities

With the development of digitalization, new technologies and changing communication models, data and therefore data-based ecosystems have become the focal point. One of the concepts that emerged due to the fact that data is seen as the new capital of the global economy is the concept of Open Data. The concept of open data, which means data that can be used and distributed free of charge and freely by anyone without being subject to any copyright, patent or other control mechanisms, attracts attention as a concept that has started to be used by many institutions and organizations around the world in the last 10-15 years. In this research, the similarities of public relations practices and open data applications will be emphasized and these similarities will be evaluated through Open Public Data. Because public institutions, geographical, touristic, statistical and commercial data, weather information, etc. It is among the largest data creators and collectors in many different fields such as. In addition to being indispensable for public policy development and service delivery, these data are also very valuable in many different aspects, such as public participation in management, involvement in decision-making processes, and creation of innovative products and services, which are the duties of public relations units within public institutions. The aim of this research is to demonstrate that it is possible to create new employment opportunities for citizens while realizing principles such as communication, transparency, reliability and accountability with citizens by using the open data portals of municipalities, which are the public institutions and organizations closest to citizens, as a new public relations application. For this purpose, the open data portals of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, New York and London Municipalities, which constitute the sample, were examined, and 4561 data sets in 32 categories from 3 open data portals were categorized with the content analysis method and analyzed through the UCINET program, and the results were evaluated.