Introducing the digital news system into a TV newsroom : a case of SBS, South Korea.

The research examined how digital TV news technology was adopted and used by individual TV journalists within the newsroom of the Seoul Broadcasting System (hereon, SBS) that adopted a digital TV news production system for the first time in South Korea (hereon, Korea). For this purpose, this study investigates 1) the process by which SBS introduced the digital TV news production system into the SBS newsroom in terms of the organisation; 2) the process by which SBS introduced the digital TV news production system into the SBS newsroom in terms of the journalist; 3) the specific changes that occurred in the SBS newsroom after adoption of the digital TV news production system. The study conducted three pieces of field research: 33 in-depth interviews, participant observations, and a survey. Based on the field research, this study finds that firstly, although SBS managed to implement newsroom digitalisation only in technological terms, SBS had to abandon most initial goals such as introducing multimedia journalism and newsroom convergence; secondly, the SBS project team's enforcement of some impractical plans, including establishing a command room and an information support centre, caused unexpected resistance from journalists. This led to journalists becoming disillusioned with the project. As a result, SBS wasted resources such as time, energy and money. The study tried to provide ideas for other media companies, which are considering converting their analogue news production systems into digitalised systems. In addition, the study's empirical findings can provide lessons for TV stations worldwide, which plan to adopt and implement similar newsroom digitalisation.