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How did Bob Marley become an international superstar? And why, 25 years after his death, is he still the only musician from a developing country to have achieved that status?

Such questions are at the heart of a new critical study of the reggae legend by OU media studies lecturer Jason Toynbee. "There are lots of biographies about Bob Marley and his story is very well known," he said. "But no-one has written about him from an academic standpoint. I wanted to make sense of the cultural impact that he had and still has."

Jason, a course team member of the OU's new study Understanding Media, says Marley's rise from a "jammin'" Jamaican social author to global icon begs fascinating questions about the nature of celebrity. "He is the only figure from such a background to have been 'admitted' into the superstar 'club'," he said. "In a way his success was also an inoculation – it's as if we have Bob Marley, so there's no need for anyone else to come through and succeed him."

Jason believes the musician, whose most famous hits include No Woman No Cry, Three Little Birds and Buffalo Soldier, and his island homeland were "in the right place at the right time.

"He was a political artist and made the transition as the freer, hippy culture came in. People began to identify with him. But it's still an interesting question as to on what terms he was allowed into the 'club'. Although I believe he was a sincere revolutionary, history has kind of smoothed off the revolutionary corners and he is now more seen as a 'natural mystic'."

But if Marley and his band The Wailers were forced to project a particular image, they were very knowing about it, says Jason. "Marley was very much in control of his career," he said. "He was a reggae artist but he knew what needed to be done if the band was to have international success. You can see that even in the earliest days of their fame – on their first appearance on The Old Grey Whistle Test in 1972, they're wearing denim shirts. They are deliberately looking not like a reggae band, but a rock band. Marley knew that was the way to get world attention."

So are we likely to see another superstar from a developing nation? "If there is one, he or she will probably come from Asia – Bollywood perhaps," said Jason. "Maybe we'll see a British Asian come through. There have been a few suggested successors to Marley – Jimmy Cliff, Bob Andy (whom Jason interviewed as part of his research) but no-one has ever come close to what he achieved. Trying to find out why is fascinating."

Jason's critical study of Bob Marley will be published by Policy in 2007.