Erased and Misremembered: Exhuming the Colonial Broadcasting of Una Marson

Abstract

Una Marson was a pioneering colonial broadcaster from Jamaica who was the first Black woman to work for the BBC. She produced and presented its Overseas Service programs Calling the West Indies and Caribbean Voices. Recently, scholars have revisited her work, but they have not acknowledged her legacy in a way that befits her accomplishments in radio. We find this observation revealing and have traced concrete actions by the BBC to erase her contributions to transborder radio broadcasting. This study considers how race, ethnicity, gender, and colonialism contributed to her obscurity and insights into the burial of her broadcasting legacy.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yvette Rowe

Yvette J. Rowe is a researcher and lecturer in broadcast journalism and production at the Caribbean School of Media and Communication at The University of the West Indies, Mona Campus. She is also a producer with extensive experience in radio and television production in the Caribbean and Europe. She has worked with organizations such as the British Broadcasting Corporation, and the former Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation. She conducts research on various aspects of broadcast journalism, production, media regulation and technology issues.

Anthony Frampton

Anthony Frampton is an activist, teacher, journalist, and community worker who has held different professional positions in corporate communication, higher education, and community development for over 20 years in the U.S. and the Caribbean. In 1991, he studied television production at the Caribbean School of Media and Communication at the UWI in Jamaica. In 1998 and 2000, respectively, he earned his bachelor’s (major: media criticism) and master’s (emphasis: media management) degrees in communication from Ohio University. In 2014, he completed a PhD in media and communication at Bowling Green State University by researching cross-border film production. He has taught ten different courses in communication at universities in Jamaica and the United States.