ИСТИНА

Central banking has changed quite dramatically in recent decades. From uncommunicative, even secretive organizations central banks moved towards increased transparency. Improvements in transparency of central banks coincided with dramatic technological advances. As central banks increased their presence in the web and social media networks there are natural questions one can ask: “How this presence evolved over time?” and “How central banks differ in their attitude towards various web tools and social media networks?” This paper is basically aimed at answering these questions. Moreover, monitoring of central bank websites and social media provides valuable information about the way monetary authorities communicate with the general public. One of the main results provided in this paper is the rating measuring central bank presence in social media networks. This rating can be considered as an additional indicator of central bank transparency. The paper is organized as follows. Section 1 describes the brief history of central banks on the World Wide Web. Surprisingly, the process of web site creation was equally distributed among developed and developing world. As early as the mid-1990s a large number of central bank websites was launched in developing countries and transition economies such as Russia, Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Mexico, South Africa, Malaysia, etc. Section 2 describes the use of social media by central banks. The Social Media rating of central banks is presented which measures the central banks activity in this area. Central banks of Mexico, Canada, England, Turkey and Norway as well as US Federal Reserve banks are among the leaders in using social media tools for communication with the public. The benefits and drawbacks of each social media channel are presented.