RADIO WAR OF THE WORLDS

Media Factsheet

1) What is the history and narrative behind War of the Worlds?

- It tells the story of an alien invasion and the ensuing conflict between mankind and an extra-terrestrial race from Mars.

2) When was it first broadcast and what is the popular myth regarding the reaction from the audience?

-- Broadcast live on 30th October 1938, popular myth has it that thousands of New Yorkers fled their homes in panic, and all across America people crowded the streets to witness for themselves the real space battle between earth and the Martians. The Trenton Police Department (close to the site of the fictional invasion) received over 2000 calls inless than two hours, while the New York Times switchboard received 875 calls from concerned listeners wanting to know where they would be safe.

3) How did the New York Times report the reaction the next day?

-MANY FLEE HOMES TO ESCAPE ‘GAS RAID FROM MARS’ – PHONE CALLS SWAMP POLICE AT BROADCAST OF WELLES FANTASY

4) How did author Brad Schwartz describe the the broadcast and its reaction?

He suggests that hysteria it caused was not entirely a myth. “Instead it was something decades ahead of its time: history’s first viral-media phenomenon.” He argues that “the stories of those whom the show frightened offer a fascinating window onto how users engage with media content, spreading and reinterpreting it to suit their own world views.

5) Why did Orson Welles use hybrid genres and pastiche and what effect might it have had on the audience?

-By borrowing the conventions of the radio newscast, he is able to create real moments of shock and awe, which almost certainly account for the strong reaction it received. By creating a hybrid form – mixing conventional storytelling with news conventions – Welles blurred the boundaries between fact and fiction in a way that audiences had never experienced.

6) How did world events in 1938 affect the way audiences interpreted the show?

-In September 1938, one month prior to the plays broadcast, Hitler signed the Munich Agreement annexing portions of Czechoslovakia and creating the ‘Sudetenland’. Europe’s failed appeasement of Germany was viewed with much concern and for many it seemed that another world war was inevitable. At this time, both the radio networks, including CBS, frequently interrupted programmes to issue news bulletins with updates on the situation in Europe. As a result, audiences became familiar with such interruptions and were thus more accepting of Welles’ faux newscasts at the beginning of the play.

7) Which company broadcast War of the Worlds in 1938?

- CBS Radio

8) Why might the newspaper industry have deliberately exaggerated the response to the broadcast?

- It has been suggested that the panic was trumped up by the newspapers to rubbish this new

medium which it viewed as a huge threat.

9) Does War of the Worlds provide evidence to support the Frankfurt School's Hypodermic Needle theory?

- This might be true of the audiences of the 1930s, unfamiliar with new media forms like radio, but in the modern age it carries less weight. It is questionable as to how far most of the audience were actually duped by the broadcast.

10) How might Gerbner's cultivation theory be applied to the broadcast?

-Gerbner’s Cultivation Theory might offer a more accurate explanation of the audience’s behaviour in response to the radio broadcast since it emphasises the longer-term effects that media texts have upon audiences.

11) Applying Hall's Reception Theory, what could be the preferred and oppositional readings of the original broadcast?

- its supposed to show the corrupt condition and decadent state of affairs in democracy

12) Do media products still retain the ability to fool audiences as it is suggested War of the Worlds did in 1938? Has the digital media landscape changed this?

- Yes as people are more gulliable to believing the information they see and there are ways the digital media are able to do this.

Media Magazine article on War of the Worlds

1) What reasons are provided for why the audience may have been scared by the broadcast in 1938? 

Orson Welles chose to tell the story using realistic radio conventions – such as flash news bulletins, expert interviews and vox pops – and set it in contemporary New Jersey.

2) How did newspapers present the story? 

The papers made a conscious decision to present it as a ‘hoax’, inferring there was something

malicious about the intentions of those making and broadcasting it, and were swift to point out the sinister power of the medium of radio itself.

3) How does the article describe the rise of radio? 

- The radio brought newa, music and more into people's homes in an accessible, realistic, direct way.

4) What does the article say about regulation of radio in the 1930s? 

- As a relatively new media form, there was still widespread scepticism about radio’s benefits and a lot of concern about its potential downsides. Just like the introduction of newer media today, older generations feared the corruption of the young by uncensored, unregulated radio content.

5) How does the article apply media theories to the WOTW? Give examples.

- Violence in video games or films, swearing in rap music, catfishing, fake news, or the Momo Challenge

6) Look at the box on page 13 of real newspaper headlines. Pick out two and write them here - you could use these in an exam answer.

- ‘Radio Play Terrifies Nation; Hysteria Grips Folks Listening in

- Late’ ‘Radio Fake Scares Nation’