Italy
The Printed Word in the Internet Age: a Challenge to FSPs

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Sr. Emiliana Park, a Daughter of St. Paul from Korea, concluded her specialized studies in social communications at the Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome, with a dissertation entitled, Changes in the Print Medium in the Internet Age.

The subtitle of the work, “Challenges and Prospects Offered by the Press to the Daughters of St. Paul of Korea,” touches on a hot point of our age and culture. In fact, it is not unrealistic to ask if the printed word has a future in our digital era, in which powerful and rapid new technologies have invaded the field of information to a massive degree.

Looking at the print medium and the Internet in Korea and keeping in mind the socio-politico-economic changes it has brought about, now multiplied by the possibilities offered by the Internet, Sr. Emiliana reflects objectively on the current position of the FSPs in this field, analyzes their successes and failures and looks to the future with hope and enthusiasm, pinpointing the challenges that face the Daughters of St. Paul at this critical moment in which “preaching by means of the printed word” is ceding ground to “digital preaching.” With confidence, she says: “While it is true that it is hard to keep pace with the swift changes taking place in the world, it is also true that we have great faith in our vocation.
Commissioned to evangelize in this new millennium, the FSPs are experimenting with online book centers and are exploring the evangelizing possibilities offered by computers’ a technology that can well serve as a preaching instrument in harmony with the Pauline charism today. We are learning to use all the forms of apostolate offered by the digital world. In reality, today’s crisis of the printed word is a challenge to us, a point of departure, as the night between the two centuries was for Fr. Alberione.”