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Free Sample Personal Statement in Communication
Program: Ph.D. in Communications
I wish to continue my academic career at the University of Southern
Minnesota in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications, with the
eventual goal of receiving my Doctoral Degree. As a Master's student in
the School of Journalism and Mass Communications, I learned research
methodology and theories of mass communications, which I have applied in
a professional marketing/advertising career for the past one and a half
years. At this time, however, I wish to continue my research in
advertising and further explore the ways by which manipulating the
content of an advertisement can affect consumers' attitudinal responses
to advertising and, subsequently, their brand evaluations and/or
purchase behaviors.
I will present a brief history of my academic and professional
backgrounds as they relate to my application to the program. My Bachelor
of Science degree in English at the University of Southern Minnesota
afforded me the ability to research and write coherently on a wide range
of subjects. After a brief professional interlude as a technical editor,
I returned to USM in January 1990 to seek my Master's degree in the
School of Journalism and Mass Communications. As an undergraduate, I had
taken introductory public relations and advertising courses and I
decided to devote my academic career to one of these areas. My graduate
degree focused on advertising theory, along with coursework in public
relations, sociology research methods, and marketing. In addition, I
served as a research assistant to a graduate student who was studying
the effects of color and graphics in print advertising, which incited me
to investigate the "other" facets of print advertising for my master's
thesis.
With this research, I realized that much emphasis had been placed on
graphics in advertising, but what of the written word? I questioned,
"How does advertising copy in general and certain types of words or
phrases affect the consumer's perceptions, cognitions, emotions, and
understanding?" My master's thesis investigated the effectiveness of
synesthetic metaphors in print advertising headlines. Synesthetic
metaphors are "words or phrases describing experiences proper to one
sense modality, which transfer or compare their meanings to another
modality." Although advertising practitioners are using synesthetic
metaphors such as, "Can't You Just Hear This Color," for a printing
company and "Juicy, Mouth-Watering Color" for a lipstick, there are no
published studies about synesthesia in consumer literature. While the
results of my exploratory experiment showed that subjects exposed to
synesthetic metaphors evaluated brands and advertisements more
unfavorably than those exposed toliteral headlines, a number of
considerations and future research questions remain for this novel area
of advertising communication.
Last summer I presented this synesthetic metaphor research at the Annual
Convention of the American Psychology Association (Consumer Psychology
Division) in Washington D.C.. My presentation was part of a panel
discussion on the effectiveness of print advertising headlines.
Currently, I am enrolled in a graduate level Marketing Research course
at USM, where I intend to gain a better understanding of the entire
marketing process, while reviewing research skills. Since receiving my
Master's Degree, I have been employed as a Marketing Coordinator for a
construction industry trade association, where I am responsible for the
development of a marketing plan and all external communications,
including a monthly newsletter, a print advertising campaign, and
collateral materials.
At this time, however, I would like to return to the challenge and
intellectual stimulation of academia and work toward contributing to the
field of communications through research in innovative areas and
teaching. For my academic area of concentration, I would like to
continue my master's research on synesthetic metaphor and delve further
into the processes of human communication, particularly in the area of
advertising.
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