‘Upholding the Penny Principle’: The Australian Press, Empire Communications and the 1929 Beam Wireless Select Committee

Abstract

This article analyses the establishment in February 1929 of the Senate Select Committee on Beam Wireless Charges, and examines the role played by powerful local communication interests – in particular, the Australian newspaper press – in the development of Australia's communications with the outside world, especially Great Britain. It is argued that the establishment of the Beam Wireless Committee of 1929, in which the media played a notable part, represented the culmination of a decade of popular local expectation concerning the advent of cheap, modern communications with the outside world, in turn articulating the needs and cultural isolation of a steady stream of immigrants from Great Britain.