Books, Films, and Phonographs: Australian Interwar Magazines and the Intermediation of Historical New Media

Abstract

Using two of Australia’s most prominent quality culture and leisure magazines of the 1920s and 1930s, BP and Home, this article turns to the periodical print culture of the Antipodes to examine the theme of this issue: ‘what was popular’ in the periodical press in the interwar period. These magazines are offered as case studies of the way in which these kinds magazines — which reviewed other forms of culture and media from books to films, theatre, and phonographs — are inherently intermedial forms. Moreover, it advances the idea that cultural values were remarkably unstable in Australia in the interwar years when historical new media, as well as Australian and American literature, were increasingly acceptable cultural pursuits.