Date of Award

2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Library and Information Science

First Advisor

Dr. Heting Chu

Second Advisor

Dr. Albert Duncan

Third Advisor

Dr. Beatrice Baaden

Abstract

Marcus Garvey, social activist and founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in the early twentieth century, has been widely studied for his Pan-African approach to the social upliftment of Black communities during a period marked by segregation and systemic injustice. His messages of empowerment attracted global attention and supported the growth of a movement that reached more than one million members worldwide. While Garvey and the UNIA have been examined from historical, political, and cultural perspectives, they have not been systematically studied through the lens of information and communication behavior. This study examines the information and communication behaviors of Marcus Garvey and UNIA members and establishes that their practices reflect professional level information and communication work. Using content analysis, the present researcher analyzed materials from the Negro World newspaper, the UNIA Papers edited by Robert A. Hill, and selected scholarly books on Garvey’s work. This study identified patterned relationships among information needs, information sources, and information use, as well as the coordinated roles of formal and informal communication in organizational governance, mobilization, defense, education, and global outreach. The findings show that Garvey and the UNIA were purposeful and disciplined users of information who relied on layered sources, including internal publications, governmental and legal documents, adversarial media, and personal reports, and who applied information strategically to action. Formal communication, especially through the Negro World, functioned as the organizational engine for global coordination and messaging, while informal communication supported morale, cohesion, and adaptability. This research demonstrates that information behavior and communication behavior operated interdependently rather than separately in this context. Based on these findings, the research introduces the Douglas-Pryce Model, an integrated model that unifies information behavior and communication behavior within a single analytical framework. This model extends existing professional information behavior models by showing that professional information and communication practices can emerge outside credentialed institutional settings and can be mobilized in pursuit of empowerment and social transformation. The study expands the scope of both information behavior and communication behavior research by establishing social activists as professionals and as important subjects for continued scholarly investigation.

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