Radio: War of the Worlds

Media Factsheet #176:

1.
War of the worlds was originally a book written by H.G.Wells which was then adapted by Orson Welles in 1938 to be broadcasted on radio. War of the Worlds is about an alien invasion from mars that creates a disruption between human and extra terrestrial life.

2.
1938. People believed that the aliens  referred to in the broadcast were the Nazis coming to attack then due to the fact that this broadcast was prior to WW2.

3.
The New York Times exaggerated this story heavily by suggesting that people were "fleeting their homes to escape as gas raid from Mars"

4.
Brad Schwartz suggested that War of the Worlds was not entirely "a myth" but that it was evidence of people becoming more susceptible to the, at the time, new media. (Radio)

5.
The hybrid combination between news and sci-fi created a sense of realism for the audiences. It creates a blur between what's real and what's part of the story. Is the news even real? or was it part of the act for the story to sound more realistic?

6.
In 1983, tension was rising with Germany as Hitler was in control at that time and was making slow movements. World War 2 took place 1 year after the War of the Worlds broadcast therefore people were already in fear of a German invasion.

7.
CBS radio.

8.
Radio at the time was still relatively new technology and it was rapidly taking over the purpose of print newspapers. In order to attempt to gain readership back, they deliberately exaggerated the situation to make it sound as if radio was the real problem to this hoping for people to stop listening to the radio and turning back to newspapers.

9.
I believe that War of the Worlds does support the hypodermic needle theory to a certain extent since audiences did rely on radio for any information about current events that occur in the world. There is also the argument that war of the worlds uses well known professors and other opinion leaders in order to attract a wider range of audiences who know about these people which may be the reason for tuning in.

10.
The broadcast supports the cultivation theory since people are increasingly believing things are are said on the radio without question. Ever since the radio had come out, more people listened and read the newspaper at the same time, the information was roughly the same as both do the same thing in different ways so with convince, radio had outplayed newspapers and people ended up including radio as part of their daily lives.

11.
The preferred reading was to make the audiences feel scared and anxious since it was nearing Halloween and it was broadcasted in order to be a Halloween joke. The oppositional reading was that the 'aliens' were actually the Nazis from Germany coming to take over.

12.
Examples in the future show that media products do still retain the ability to fool audience members. This includes copycats of the war of the worlds broadcast like the incident in Kito, Ecuador in 1949 which resulted in similar reactions to the war of the worlds incident with a lot of phone calls to the police to ask for instructions on what to do.


Analysis and opinion:

1.
Due the to reaction from the audiences, it was considered as a very successful and impactful broadcast. At that time, radio was still fairly new which made broadcasting quite new to people and the reaction was very 'extreme'.

2.
I think that Orson Welles using a hybrid of news and sci fi stories was a better example of fake news. Orson Welles used normal radio broadcasting which was then interrupted by breaking news which was an uncommon term in radio. This allowed audiences to experience something never before. To further support this point, the reaction from the audiences were shown to be greater form the broadcast compared to the follow up from the newspaper which did not convince everyone about radio.

3.
I do agree with the hypodermic needle theory that audiences are impacted by the media. This is clearly shown by the reaction from the audiences who tuned in on War of the Worlds broadcast.

4.
I think that the growing digital age has made the hypodermic needle theory much more relevant since the number of people online have increased along with the introduction of more opinion leaders. These opinion leaders gain more followers since more and more people are on the internet these days.

5.
I do believe that as time goes on, peoples beliefs change due to what goes around in the media. People who spend more and more time on tings like social media and bound to have different thoughts on certain topics maybe due to factors such as opinion leaders.

6.
I think that Gerbner's theory is much more relevant today since there are so many more media platforms for people to go to and look. Social media is a crucial factor in this as well as streaming services and other factors like podcasts. It allows people to have easier access to media products which would increase the likely hood of people changing beliefs due to what they see online.