Language

Representation

Industries

• CBS radio
• An episode of a american radio drama called The Mercury Theatre on the air
• It was released as the Halloween episode on 8 pm Sunday October 30 1938

Audience

• 12 million listeners

• It was first broadcast on October 30th 1938
• Performed on radio by Orson Wells
• H. G. Wells was the author
• Upon its first release, people who tuned in after the beginning of the radio drama believed it was a real news bulletin and began to freak out.

• Home station – CBS radio
• Hosted by – The Mercury Theater on the air

• Fake news
• Anxiety era
• 12 million listeners at the time
• The relationship between newspapers and radio is significant
• By 1935 there were double the amount of radios in houses than telephones so it was easily spread.
• ‘Moral Panic’
• Stanley Cohen

The fact that Wells made such a benefit from the overblown coverage as well as CBS radio created an idea that the radio station amplified the stories of people over reacting to gain viewership and publicity. However, if people did overreact in this way then that would of supported Well’s belifes of the power of media.

Chomsky‘s argument that the media is used by powerful groups – ‘Manufacturing Consent‘ – is the most appropriate theory to structure an understanding of media, technology, control, manipulation and power.

‘Radio is a blind medium’