Stephen M. Anti

Stephen M. Anti

Ph.D. Candidate, Communication and Media Studies
School of Journalism and Communication, University of Oregon

I study how news media frame mental illness, and how those frames move audiences toward or away from seeking help. My research connects health and risk communication with media effects, with a focus on Ghana.

Before graduate school, I spent more than a decade as a news editor and national television anchor in Accra, and as the U.S. Embassy's media specialist for PEPFAR. I am on the 2026–27 academic job market and expect to complete my Ph.D. in May 2027.

CV (PDF) | smanti@uoregon.edu | sma2263@columbia.edu
ORCID | Google Scholar | SOJC profile

Research

Framing Psychosis: News Media, Stigma, and the Mechanisms of Public Response in Ghana

My dissertation asks how news coverage of psychosis shapes what readers believe about the illness, how they feel toward people living with it, and whether they would recommend professional help. Committee: Nikki McClaran (Chair), Leslie Steeves, S. S. Ofori-Parku, and Deepu Murty.

Study 1 is a quantitative content analysis of 332 stories from 10 Ghanaian outlets published between 2015 and 2025, coded for frames, attributions of cause and responsibility, and stigmatizing language. I built the corpus from Factiva, Nexis Uni, and web scraping, and screened it for relevance with an LLM-assisted pipeline.

Study 2 is a three-condition experiment (fear, empathy, and neutral frames) comparing two routes from a news story to stigma: how controllable readers judge the illness to be, and how they feel toward the person living with it. Stigma, in turn, shapes whether readers would recommend help.

News frame fear, empathy, neutral Controllability appraisal cognitive route Fear and empathic concern affective route Stigma toward psychosis Help- recommendation
Figure 1. Conceptual model for Study 2.

Other projects

Methods: quantitative content analysis, survey and experimental design, multilevel modeling (including MAIHDA), mediation analysis, in-depth interviews, and focus groups. Software: Stata, SPSS, R, jamovi, Python, and Mapbox.

Publications

Book chapter

  1. Romann, L. R., Shoieb, Z., Boateng, S. N., Anti, S. M., & Hintz, E. A. (in press). Explicating the divergence in worldwide mental health literacy. In V. Agarwal (Ed.), Communication and mental health in global contexts: Opportunities for transformation, representation, and social justice. Routledge.

Manuscripts under review

  1. Oboro-Offerie, R. A., & Anti, S. M. Country contexts and intersectional inequalities in attitudes toward contraceptive accessibility in Africa: A multilevel analysis of individual heterogeneity and discriminatory accuracy (MAIHDA) [Manuscript under review]. Studies in Family Planning.
  2. McClaran, N., & Anti, S. M. Depression symptoms, treatments, and depiction on video-based social media: Implications for practice [Manuscript under review]. Health Promotion Practice.

Manuscripts in preparation

  1. Anti, S. M. Framing maternal mental health: Emotional pathways to help-seeking in Accra, Ghana.
  2. Anti, S. M., & Oboro-Offerie, R. A. Media usage and attitudes toward contraceptive accessibility: Regional disparities and sociodemographic determinants among Ghanaians.
  3. Boateng, S. N., Anti, S. M., & Lachlan, K. Maternal health crisis in Ghana: Image restoration, the quack midwife, and the human cost of poor crisis strategies.
  4. Koomson, P., Ofori-Parku, S. S., Akakpo, A., & Anti, S. M. E-waste framing in Ghanaian media.

Conference presentations

  1. Anti, S. M. (2026, March 6–7). Framing maternal mental health: The role of emotions in risk perceptions and help-seeking intentions among pregnant and new mothers in Accra, Ghana [Paper presentation]. AEJMC Midwinter Conference, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, United States.
  2. Okyere, F., Kuwornu, A. Y., & Anti, S. M. (2026, July). Digital diplomacy, soft power and narratives from the Global South: The case of IShowSpeed's Ghana tour [Paper accepted; not presented due to travel restrictions]. IAMCR Annual Conference, Galway, Ireland.
  3. Anti, S. M. (2025, May 12–15). (Re)constructing mental illness: Ghanaian news media framing and how it influences public policies and perceptions [Paper presentation]. 23rd Annual International Conference on Communication and Media Studies, ATINER, Athens, Greece.

Teaching

I teach writing, reporting, and production through practice, with mock interviews, story selection, and revision at the center of each course. In Spring 2025, 84% of my Writing as Practice students reported that the course's approaches and inclusiveness benefited their learning.

University of Oregon

Jayee University College, Accra

Prepared to teach: quantitative research methods, survey and experimental design, media effects, health and risk communication, science communication, news writing and reporting, broadcast news production, data and multimedia journalism, documentary production, and strategic communication.

Selected work

Chart from the New Jersey schools story

New Jersey public schools show pandemic recovery

My Columbia master's project. An analysis of 668 school districts on six performance measures found that 62% improved on most of them, while college enrollment fell almost everywhere and gains tilted toward wealthier districts.

Read the story

Agora Journalism Center, University of Oregon

Interactive maps I built for the Center's statewide assessment of Oregon's local news and information ecosystem.

Local News Ecosystem in Oregon

Local News Ecosystem in Oregon

A scrolling map story that walks through the assessment's findings: 241 outlets producing original local news in 97 Oregon cities, how they are owned, and the counties left with one or two sources.

Oregon's Local News Media Ecosystem

Oregon's Local News Media Ecosystem: Unequal Distribution

A clickable map of every outlet in the database, sized by circulation or audience and set against county population density.

Broadcast

Also: Election Watch, a four-part data-driven forecast series for Ghana's 2020 elections, produced with University of Ghana statisticians and political scientists (TV3, 2020). Episodes 1, 2, 3, and 4.

Data journalism

Professional experience

Recognition: TV Male Newscaster of the Year, RTP Awards, 2020. Meritorious Honor Award, U.S. Embassy Accra, 2011.

Education

Contact

Email: smanti@uoregon.edu or sma2263@columbia.edu
ORCID · Google Scholar · SOJC profile · CV (PDF)