By: Joey Velasco, Katie Yun, Milena Gevorgyan, Cynthia Torres
Dr. Elise Assaf is an assistant professor of communications, where she teaches courses in public relations and entertainment. She holds a PhD in Education from Chapman University and earned both her MA and BA in Communications from Cal State Fullerton.
In her dissertation, Hidden Power: Journalistic Representations of Mental Health Labels, Dr. Assaf examined how The New York Times, The Washington Post, and USA Today portray mental health. She used a qualitative case study approach with Critical Discourse Analysis to explore how journalistic language influences public understanding by reinforcing stereotypes and simplifying complex issues.
In our interview, she shared the personal and academic journey behind her research, along with insights on mental health, media framing, and the role of language in shaping perception.
Q: What initially sparked your interest in researching mental health representations in media, and how has that inspiration evolved throughout your research journey?
Dr. Assaf’s interest began with personal experience, especially the responses she witnessed to her brother’s schizophrenia diagnosis. She grew curious about how media shapes those reactions, noticing a pattern of repeated stereotypes and an emphasis on diagnosis rather than the full person. Rather than focusing on how audiences interpret these messages, she chose to examine how news outlets construct them.
Q: How did you approach balancing your personal perspectives with objectivity throughout the research process?
She believes that acknowledging personal bias is an important part of qualitative research. Rather than trying to remove it, she reflected on how her experiences shaped her analysis. She also collaborated with peers to compare interpretations and ensure the analysis remained grounded and open to other perspectives.
Q: What advice would you give to emerging researchers who want to explore media representation and discourse studies? What challenges should they anticipate?
Dr. Assaf advises choosing a topic you care deeply about. Research can be long and challenging, so genuine interest helps sustain the work. She emphasizes the value of contributing something meaningful to the field, whether by exploring new topics or revisiting older studies with updated perspectives. She encourages researchers to identify gaps in the literature and focus on producing work that informs and sparks conversation.
Q: How do you see your research contributing to broader discussions about mental health representation, especially within news media?
She views media as a powerful space for learning. Dr. Assaf sees her work as a way to connect communication and education by exploring how news stories shape what people know and believe about mental health. These stories do more than report facts. They influence how people talk about mental health and how it is understood in everyday life. Her goal is to help people become more aware of the messages they consume and more thoughtful about the assumptions those messages carry.
Q: You applied Critical Discourse Analysis to articles from The Washington Post, The New York Times, and USA Today. Would you expect different results if you applied your analysis to other major publications or non-traditional news sources?
She believes similar results would likely appear in other national newspapers because they serve similar audiences. However, different patterns might emerge in international outlets, local publications, or media with strong political leanings. She originally hoped to include more geographic diversity in her sample but revised her plan due to a conflict of interest.
Q: Were there any significant differences in how each of the three publications framed mental health? If so, what do you believe contributed to those differences?
Dr. Assaf found no major differences among the newspapers she studied. Each one used similar language and relied on comparable sources. Since they are all written for wide national audiences, their tone and framing were mostly aligned. While this consistency can be helpful for clarity, she noted that it can also limit the diversity of perspectives included in coverage.
Q: Your analysis identified patterns and trends in the linguistic choices used to describe mental health. Were there any specific words or phrases that stood out as particularly problematic or beneficial in shaping public perception?
She did not identify one specific phrase, but what stood out to her was the lack of voices from people with lived experience. Most of the reporting relied on third-party sources, such as officials or clinicians, which can affect credibility and create distance from the subject. She also noted that when stereotypes are repeated across multiple articles, they can quietly shape public attitudes in powerful ways.
Source: Washington Post
Source: Washington Post
Q: What would you change or expand upon if you were to conduct this study again with a broader or different dataset? Would you consider including social media or alternative news sources?
Dr. Assaf would consider including social media and independent news platforms, though she recognizes the challenges involved. Social media content is less stable, often more difficult to verify, and subject to manipulation. She also expressed interest in studying local publications, but found that many smaller outlets are owned by larger companies and often recycle national stories.
Q: What limitations did you encounter in applying Critical Discourse Analysis to your dataset, and how would you address them in future research?
She explained that every method has its limits. Her analysis focused only on article text and did not include visuals, reader comments, or other digital elements. She also worked with a relatively small sample size in order to explore each article in depth. She believes future studies could expand on this by analyzing a broader range of content from more diverse sources.
Q: Considering your findings, what recommendations would you make to journalists or media outlets to improve their coverage of mental health topics?
She encourages journalists to seek out voices from people with lived experience. These stories are often overlooked or underrepresented, yet they provide important insight. She acknowledges that reaching these individuals can be difficult because of privacy and stigma, but believes the effort is worth it. Including more direct accounts can create more accurate, human-centered reporting and help shift the narrative away from overly clinical or institutional viewpoints.
Q: Were there any findings that particularly surprised you or contradicted your initial assumptions?
Yes. One thing that surprised her was the frequent appearance of first responders, such as police officers and firefighters, in mental health stories. In many cases, they were included even when they had no direct involvement. Dr. Assaf expected to see more quotes from family members or people with personal ties to those in the stories. This made her question why authority figures are so often treated as default experts on mental health, even though their experience in this area may be limited.
Conclusion
Dr. Assaf’s work reminds us that the way we talk about mental health matters. By examining how media frames these conversations, her research encourages us to become more thoughtful consumers of news and more intentional storytellers in our own lives.
For the full interview please visit
The Society for Communications Research 