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Sample Personal Statement for Intercultural Studies in Mass
Communication
Most of what people "know" about the world, as suggested by
America’s early journalistic commentator Walter Lippman, comes not so
much from personal experience as through mass media. Clearly, we live
in a world that is saturated with images created by the media and our
understanding of this world can only be relatively true, or can
infinitely approach the truth, but can never be equated with the truth
itself. In a certain sense, the media shapes our perceptions about the
world. Therefore, once furnished with the power of mass media, we are
furnished with a decisive edge in challenging the society. These ideas
have promoted me to deeply appreciate the active role of media in
terms of constructing a virtual world, and evoked my interest in
theories of communication. Through years of rewarding study and work,
this appreciation and interest have grown into a conviction that the
construction of a wise, exuberant and responsible media will be my
life-long devotion.
My academic research on mass media set sail with my BA thesis. To
explore the impact of communication, I made a comparative study
concerning the reports on the Kosovo War by CNN World News and CCTV –
the similarities and dissimilarities of the programs and styles in
addressing the same topic. This comparison was then echoed by a
demonstration of the audience’s different attitudes towards the same
war under the influence of different media. Correspondingly, I drew a
conclusion that the attitude of the government is an insurmountable
gulf fixed in front of the media, and suggested that in order to build
a favorable image of the government, the official media should achieve
its end by effective combination of true information rather than
evading sensitive and hot issues.
This conclusion has again and again been confirmed during my
three-year dedicated work in the News Center of CCTV. Today in a time
of numerous means of communication, it is impossible to evade or wall
up any information. To do so is only to impair the credibility of the
official media and deprive it of public adherence to what they
advocate. Any government that intends to win public identification of
its stands on sensitive and hot issues should publicize these stands,
and guide the public opinion through professional media strategies
that are likely to be accepted by the audience. This is in the
reformation of China’s news system an urgent undertaking that we
should spare no effort to accomplish.
My experience in CCTV, the largest and most authoritative TV station
in China has armed me with substantial knowledge and skills to
contribute to this undertaking. I witnessed the whole process of TV
news reformation in China and made my way through from a journalist
and editor to a director and editor-in-chief. From living broadcast of
significant events to painstaking editing of informative news, news
magazines and special editions, I engaged myself in making all kinds
of TV programs, which covered almost all aspects of China’s
reformation and development, among them the reformation of the public
sector, the entry into the WTO, the bid for the 2008 Olympics, and the
National People’s Congress and People's Political Consultative
Conference every year. Furthermore, the cultural programs I made as a
director of CCTV Oriental Time comprehensively dealt with important
literary and art works of contemporary China, which allowed me to
develop keen enthusiasm in the studies of media culture, cross
cultures communication and international communication. With these, I
achieved a transition from practical work to theoretical studies and a
shift from microcosmic operation to macrocosmic judgment. Because the
editors are directly involved in the making of programs with the
ultimate audience in mind, I kept examining my work and the
relationship between media, media environment and the audience, with a
vision of the whole program, even the whole media. Consequently, how
to take full advantages of the media in China has become a question I
am frequently concerned with, which is out of the reach of specific
and microcosmic operations like news reports and program making.
Nowadays, emerging communication technologies are accelerating
transformations in the mass society, while the impact of mass media on
individuals, society and culture is increasingly prominent. Yet,
compared with the situation in the west, the mass media industry in
China is still fettered by too many problems. How the government can
effectively and reasonably manage the mass media and how the industry
can be guided by the most recent theoretical achievements are pressing
tasks calling for solutions. On the other hand, in a context of media
globalization, excessive information of foreign cultures in the media
presentation of the world may result in a social crisis of cultural
identity. The exploration of favorable ways of opening up the Chinese
media, or the market-oriented reformation of the Chinese media,
requires due attention. A mastery of the up-to-date theoretic
achievements in the field of world news communication is for sure to
be helpful in solving the problems that China’s media is facing or is
to face.
Therefore, I hope to pursue a further education in the U.S., which
boasts the most advanced media research worldwide. My main research
interest is the impact of media and communication. More specifically,
I would like to focus on the intercultural studies in mass
communication. It is undeniable that media produce significant impact
on the recipients’ cultural identification. Many countries in the
world are confronted with the crisis of social and cultural
identification under the impact of globalization. The media in those
countries tend to present an overwhelming amount of foreign culture at
the expense of their national culture, causing the recipients to
regard foreign culture and values unconsciously as a standard against
which to measure their national cultural values. This problem is
especially serious for developing countries under the general
framework of media globalization. How to evaluate both the positive
and the negative impacts of foreign cultural influences and to strike
a mutually reciprocal balance and reconciliation between indigenous
and imported cultures will be a fascinating issue for research.
Another issue related to intercultural studies in mass communication
that interests me is exploring possible ways of opening the domestic
media market of developing countries, especially a country like China,
to international media giants and foreign capital. Although the
commercialization of China’s media does not represent the entirety of
China’s media reform, it nevertheless constitutes an important part of
the reform. China has the greatest media market in the world but for a
long time in the past all media in China have been put under the
authoritarian ideological control of the central government. With
China’s accession into the WTO, there have been countless outcries for
the elimination of government control over media. It is inevitable
that international capital would flow into China’s media market. The
United States’ National Geography Channel and Discovery Channel have
already been introduced into China. Given the historical and
ideological background of Chinese society, it will be a very delicate
issue how to react to the encroachment of international media and
international capital. With respect to their international
counterparts, should Chinese media simply reject, or compete again, or
cooperate? What are some of the feasible modes of commercial
operations?
The United States will provide an ideal academic environment for me
since in the U.S., research of media impact is nearly identical to
that of mass media, and remains the interdisciplinary subject of all
researches on communication. Moreover, some American institutions have
surveyed several times about the impact of mass media on the culture
identity, which fits my research interest and purpose perfectly. I aim
to get a profound comprehension of the reality and history of media
development in the most developed country of the west, and to grasp
advanced research methods and theories in my concerned field, so that
I can overlook the Chinese media industry from a higher perspective,
commit myself to its development, and promote China’s media onto a way
leading to wisdom, exuberance and responsibility. |
