EDITORIAL - Conventional bridges

Over the past two years, this paper has seen a dramatic increase in the number of visits by students who are on an educational tour. While before the visits would hardly number five in a year, now we get as many as two or three every month.

But it is not only the increased number of visits that has proven to be amazing. What has also proven to be quite startling is the dramatic shift from the kind of students we used to entertain as a media outlet.

While before the bulk of student visitors would be journalism or mass communication students, now the vast majority is comprised of students taking up computer science or information technology.

These changes clearly underscore the dramatic shift in direction in educational priorities of the young, which reflect the new opportunities that have presented themselves in the new world.

These changes in turn will affect the media industry in its time. Even now, great changes are taking place in the Philippines where the media is concerned. Newspaper operations are no longer what they used to call paper and ink operations.

Nevertheless, while the Philippines struggles to keep pace with the rest of the world in terms of technology, its built-in limitations will always ensure that it will continue to play catch up instead of keeping in step with the latest trends.

And so, while great advancements have been made in the media industry, conventional media will still be around for quite a while, and it is these conventional media that is also providing the opportunities that keep students bridge the widening technological gaps.

Without the fortuitous slowness to keep pace with the times, educational courses in the Philippines will be left behind in no time and be rendered obsolete. Conventionality has its uses in bridging what is possible and what is practical.