Master of Arts (by coursework & dissertation) — Media Theory & Practice postgraduate personal statement example

Personal statement example

When I transcribe a podcast, the hardest thing to write down is laughter. The client's style guide asks for [laughs], but that single tag covers a polite chuckle, a nervous breath before a difficult answer and two hosts collapsing over a joke only they understand. For two years I have done freelance transcription alongside my job in a bookshop, and the work has made me alert to how much of media lives in what gets flattened when it moves from one form to another. I want to study media theory and practice at postgraduate level because I would like to understand those transformations properly, and to make work that takes them seriously.

My undergraduate degree was in English and Film. I came to it through literature, but the courses that held me most were those on genre, audiences and the history of broadcasting. For my honours project I studied two community radio phone-in programmes in the Cape Flats, recording six weeks of broadcasts and interviewing three presenters and a handful of regular callers. I was interested in how presenters manage a live conversation: when they let a caller run on, when they cut in, how they move between English and Afrikaans depending on who is on the line. I drew on Stuart Hall's encoding and decoding model, but found it harder to apply than I expected, because callers were not simply decoding a message; they were partly making the programme. That tension became the most interesting part of the project, and it is one I would like to pursue further with stronger methods for analysing participation and talk.

The project also taught me practical things. I learned to edit audio in Audacity, to keep consent forms and recordings organised, and to write a transcript that a reader could trust. My supervisor's comment that my analysis was strongest where I stayed closest to the recordings has stayed with me, and I think it describes how I work best: from close attention to particular material towards broader argument.

Since graduating, my working life has been ordinary but useful. At the bookshop I run the window displays and the monthly staff recommendations shelf, which has made me think about curation and how small choices about placement shape what people pick up. The transcription work, mostly for interview podcasts and some academic focus groups, has given me speed and accuracy, and a lot of exposure to how different producers structure an hour of talk. Outside paid work, I help my aunt lay out the newsletter for her church each month. It is four pages in a free design program, but it has given me a feel for deadlines, for negotiating with contributors who send copy late, and for designing something that older readers can follow easily.

Not everything I do connects to media. I play in a Thursday five-a-side league, and I have spent the past year slowly learning to cook food from my grandmother's handwritten recipes, which mostly involves guessing what 'a good handful' means.

At postgraduate level I hope to deepen my theoretical grounding, particularly in audience studies and the politics of language in South African media, while developing practical skills in audio production. A coursework and dissertation route suits me because I want structured reading alongside the chance to make something substantial. I am considering a dissertation that combines a short audio piece with a written analysis, perhaps returning to community radio to look at how stations are adapting to listeners who now encounter them through WhatsApp clips and streams rather than the dial.

I am a careful, patient worker who listens closely and finishes what I start. I would bring that, along with real curiosity about how ordinary people use and remake media, to the seminar room and to my own practice.