Australia

Rodney Tiffen

Australia falls very much within the traditions of Anglo-American journalism. Historically the strongest influences were British, inheriting a mixed model of public and private broadcasting and a strong but not constitutionally protected tradition of press freedom. Australia's smaller market and concentrated media ownership have sometimes inhibited more diverse offerings. Today it shares with other advanced liberal democracies a trend toward ever larger media organizations, and a multitude of challenges with technological changes, an expansion of many parajournalistic genres and fragmenting audiences. European settlement began in Australia with the founding of the penal colony at Sydney Cove in 1788, and a printing press was carried aboard the first fleet. However, it was not until 1803 that the first newspaper, the Sydney Gazette , began rather inauspiciously as a government-licensed publication carrying officially sanctioned information. By the 1820s there were several independent, competing newspapers, taking up the rights of emancipated convicts and ...

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