Francy D. Luna Diaz

Email: lunadiaz@umich.edu

Dissertation Title: Rumors Across Borders: The Influence of Transnational Ties on Latinos’ Information and Misinformation Environment

Summary: Francy D. Luna Diaz is a doctoral candidate (ABD) in Political Science at the University of Michigan. Her research examines how information environments shape political attitudes and behavior, with particular attention to Latino politics in the United States. Drawing on political communication, political psychology, and public opinion research, she studies how social ties, digital media, language, and misinformation influence what people believe and how they make political decisions.

Luna Diaz uses a mixed-methods approach that combines surveys, survey experiments, interviews, computational text analysis, and social media data analysis. Across her research, she investigates how people encounter political information, how they evaluate and interpret it, and how it ultimately shapes political attitudes, participation, and vote choice.

Her book-style dissertation develops a theory of transnational information environments to explain how cross-border social ties and digital communication shape the ways Latinos in the United States encounter, interpret, and respond to political information. The project demonstrates how connections that extend beyond national borders can produce distinct information environments with important consequences for political beliefs and behavior.

Luna Diaz's research has been supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP), the American Political Science Association Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant (APSA DDRIG), and several other competitive fellowships, grants, and awards. 

Personal Website: francylunadiaz.com