Throughout the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the public was reliant on the newspaper and periodical press for entertainment, news and information. Even before mass literacy newspapers were being read aloud by the literate members of a community. By the mid-nineteenth century high literacy rates, reduced regulations, and the emergence of new print, communication and transportation technologies resulted in the mass circulation of print media and a commercialisation of the press (Raven; Steinberg). More newspapers and periodicals were being produced, and they were being read by larger and more diverse audiences than ever before. The press had become an indispensable part of daily life, described by S. H. Steinberg as ‘an instrument of mass-information and mass-education’ (161) and by Alan Lee as ‘the most important single medium of the communication of ideas’ (18).
In Australia, the first colonial newspaper, the Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, was established…