본 연구는 온라인 뉴스 도입이 종이신문 생산 시스템을 보유하고 있는 언론사의 기사 생산 프로세스를 어떤 방식으로 변화시켰는지를 살펴본다. 이를 확인하기 위해 네이버 포털이 온라인 뉴스를 서비스한 2000년 5월부터 2017년 2월까지 종이신문을 보유한 언론사 뉴스 데이터 49,785,412건을 수집하여 포털 뉴스 발행시간 변화를 살펴보았다. 연구 결과는 온라인 뉴스 초기에는 특정 시간대 기사를 집중송고하는 패턴이 두드러지게 나타났지만 이후 상시 기사 작성이 일상화되며 M자 형태의 기사 송고 패턴을 보인다는 사실을 확인할 수 있었다. 하지만 개별 언론사를 살펴보았을 때 여전히 종이 신문 마감 주기를 바탕으로 하는 집중송고 경향을 유지하는 경향도 발견되었다. 데이터에 대한 해석을 위한 심층 인터뷰는 온라인 뉴스의 도입이 종이신문 기사와 함께 이루어지는 상황에서 기자의 업무 부담이 증가하는 현실을 보여준다. 그럼에도 여전히 많은 언론사가 뉴스 발행의 중심을 종이로 잡고 있으며 온라인 뉴스가 시작된 지 오랜 시간이 지났지만, 온라인 전환은 아직 갈 길이 멀다는 결론을 제시했다.
　
This study empirically explores how news organizations" online publishing practices have changed since Naver participated in online news distribution. South Korean newspaper companies heavily depend on the Naver portal for referral traffic. This has caused a variety of problems in the news environment. These problems with portals have mainly been discussed in terms of journalism ethics. Although there have been many discourses regarding the impact of online news, it has rarely been explored how news stories are actually being updated online. Therefore, this study focused on the changes in online news publishing practices involving the portal. As an exploratory study, it provides insight into how the portal has influenced the news distribution environment. The eleven daily newspapers (i.e., Kyunghyang, Kookmin, Naeil, Donga, Munhwa, Seoul, Segye, Chosun, Joongang, Hankyoreh, and Hankook), the six economic newspapers (i.e., Seoul Economy, Asian Economy, Financial News, Korean Economy, and Herald Economy), and the seven sports newspapers (i.e., Sports Donga, Sports Seoul, Sports World, Sports Chosun, Sports Hankook, and Daily Sports) were selected for analysis. Furthermore, to compare the publishing patterns, this study included three wired services (i.e., News 1, Newsis, and Yonhap News), which do not have print versions. The total number of articles was 49,785,412. In addition to the data from the portal, this study used the press directory to investigate the changing workforce of news outlets. The results of the study confirmed that, in the early days of online news, there was a prominent pattern of intensively publishing news articles during a certain time of the day. As live reporting has become routine, the prominent pattern has been alleviated. In the early days of online journalism, news organizations with a printed paper showed a concentrated publishing pattern. However, after the portal become dominant in online news distribution, daytime online news publishing became generalized. The data shows that, in the early days of the portal, daily newspapers published online between 6:00 pm and 8:00 pm, after editing of the printed paper closed. Now, the proportion of daytime publishing has increased. However, some media outlets still give weight to the paper news cycle, which maintains the concentrated news publishing patterns. In-depth interviews show the increasing burden on journalists" jobs when the production routine of online news does not replace the paper-centered news production routine. Journalists addressed the point that many media outlets still hold the paper news at the center of news publishing. It has been a long time since online news was adopted in South Korea. However, the data and in-depth interviews revealed that the online transition has a long way to go. As exploratory research based on empirical data, this study provides the basic data for further research regarding the impact of digital transformation on journalism.