Hey dischordinthegarden if you are talking about the twitter chat, don't let that depress you. Plenty of people get comm degrees and don't want to go into marketing or advertising. If you like media research try volunteering with a research team in your university, see if you can go to one of the conferences (ICA, NCA, AEJMC, or ECA because it's near you) and check out who is doing stuff you like. Read the journals and see who writes stuff that interests you. Its late now to apply for next year but that gives you plenty of time to prep. Find out what the programs where people you like are working would want in an applicant and try to get that experience or test scores. If you have high scores and research experience, you might be able to get funded for your MA (I did). The MA is also a good place to figure out if you a) like research and want to continue before taking the leap to a phd program. Most people I know in comm programs did one before applying to the phd program. Of course some people knew they wanted to go for the PhD at the onset, and for them applying directly to a PhD program (or one that incorporates a MA, like UCSB, or MSUs MA/PhD track) was a good option.
I know people applying this year have already done all this, but I was totally clueless when I started looking for programs and doing everything listed above helped me out a ton. Good luck