War of The Worlds was a book originally published by H.G Wells in 1898. War of The Worlds was originally broadcast on the radio on October 30th, 1938 between both WW1 and WW2 The 30’s was a decade of uncertainty and unfortunate events as people were still recovering from WW1, the Great Depression and Wall Street’s crash. However, dictators like Hitler were gaining popularity and strength at this time meaning the Nazi party were gaining people strength and force, as well as its’ persecution of Jewish people. A second world war was approaching, bringing with it an air of uncertainty and negativity. In contrast, the 1930’s and 1940’s brought the ‘Golden Age’ of radio to the masses, whereby radio was the most used media platform in households across the world.

 The War of The Worlds was broadcast in America by CBS radio, as part of The Mercury Theatre’s ‘On the Air’ series. The broadcast is an early example of a hybrid as it mixes conventions from H.G Wells’ science-fiction story together with a News / Documentary type broadcast. Roughly 80% of households in the US owned a radio at the time. There was a drama performance of War of The Worlds which was adapted to sound like a present day, live broadcast with no intervals and only having one announcement at the beginning to warn listeners that it was a play and not a real broadcast.

 Welles used simulated on-the-scene radio reports about aliens advancing on New York City linking to the story. Repetition of this technique throughout the performance links to Stuart Hall’s Cultivation Theory where over time a story becomes more believable.

The broadcast demonstrates how media institutions manufacture consent. Therefore, this creates a presence on how the media dominates, and is dominated by power. By exposing how people react with panic if the “news” provides the audience with information about the significance of an event, Orson Welles exposed how the media can spread fake news. The War of the Worlds broadcast is also considered an early form of ‘fake news’ as it supposedly had some members of the American public believe that there had been an alien invasion on earth. 

At the time of the broadcast, American citizens will have been very on edge considering the events happening in the world around them due to the anticipation of a second world war. The broadcast became famous for supposedly causing mass panic among its listeners however, many doubt the scale of panic that was claimed to have been made, as the radio channel had relatively few listeners. In reality, it was the speculations that newspapers portrayed that caused mass hysteria.

War of The Worlds was a book originally published by author H.G Wells in 1898. War of The Worlds was broadcast on the radio on October 30th, 1938; this was between both WW1 and WW2. The 1930’s was a decade full of unfortunate events as people across the world were still recovering from WW1, the Great Depression and Wall Street’s crash. In addition, across the globe dictators such as Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini were gaining power. The Nazi party in Germany began to escalate in number and force, followed by its’ persecution of Jewish people and others considered ‘undesirables’. A second world war was imminent, bringing with it an air of uncertainty and negativity. In contrast, the 1930’s and 1940’s brought the ‘Golden Age’ of radio to the masses, whereby radio was the most used media platform in households across the world. 

The War of The Worlds was broadcast in America by CBS radio, as part of The Mercury Theatre’s ‘On the Air’ series. Roughly, 80% of households in the US owned a radio at this specific time. The drama performance of War of The Worlds was adapted to sound like a present day, live broadcast. It had no breaks and only had one announcement at the beginning of the broadcast to warn listeners that it was a play and not a real news broadcast. The broadcast is an early example of a hybrid-genre as it mixes conventions from H.G Wells’ science-fiction story together with a News / Documentary type broadcast.  Welles used simulated on-the-scene radio reports about aliens advancing on New York City linking to the story. Repetition of this technique throughout the performance links to Stuart Hall’s Cultivation Theory where over time a story becomes more believable.

The broadcast demonstrates how media institutions manufacture consent, linking with the ideas of Noam Chomsky, ‘Ownership, Advertising, The Media Elite, Flak and The Common Enemy’ as with the broadcast of War of the Worlds by Orson Welles. Therefore, this creates a presence on how the media dominates, and is dominated by power. By exposing how people react with panic if the “news” provides the audience with information about the significance of an event, Orson Welles exposed how the media can spread misinformation i.e. ‘Fake News’. The War of the Worlds broadcast is also considered an early form of ‘fake news’ as it supposedly had some members of the American public believe that there had been an alien invasion on earth. An example of this is the Hypodermic needle model, which is a communication theory that suggests mixed media messages are injected directly into the brains of audiences. It comes from a fear of mass media, and provides the media with much more power than it can contain within a democracy, which causes mass shock.

At the time of the broadcast American citizens will have been very on edge considering the events happening in the world around them due to the anticipation of a second world war combined with the fact that it was Halloween. The broadcast became famous for supposedly causing mass panic among its listeners however, many doubt the scale of panic that was claimed to have been made, as the radio channel had relatively few listeners. In reality, it was the speculations that newspapers portrayed that caused mass hysteria.

The War Of The Worlds is a historically significant media product as it was an early idea of how the media can persuade and effect peoples thoughts and views on the world around them and can influence a person’s thoughts and feelings towards a specific thing whether it be political or an opinion on a book. We still see this today where news is more accessible through improved technology and the worldwide web. Even though people are more aware of the role the media plays, people are still susceptible to believing it. 

My attempt of an election poster:

Analysing Political Posters:

War Of The Worlds was a book originally published by author H.G Wells in 1898. War Of The Worlds was broadcasted on the radio on October 30th 1938, this was in between both world war 1 and world was 2 and was the year prior to world war 2. the 1930’s was a decade full of unfortunate events, people across the world were still recovering from world war 1, the Great Depression and the Wall Street crash happened and dictators such as Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini gained power. Nazi Germany began to escalate and began its persecution of the Jews and people across the world were anticipating a second war. The 1930’s to the 1940’s was also considered the ‘Golden Age’ of radio and radio was the most used media platform in households across the world.

The War Of The Worlds broadcast was broadcasted in America by CBS radio and was part of The Mercury Theatre on the Air series, almost 80% of households in America owned a radio at this time. The drama performance of War Of The Worlds was adapted to sound like a present day live broadcast, it had no breaks and only had one announcement at the beginning of the broadcast to warn listeners that it was a play and not a real news broadcast, this meant that listeners tuning in mid-broadcast could become slightly confused. The broadcast is an early example of a hybrid-genre as it mixes conventions from H.G Wells’ science-fiction story and News / Documentary type broadcasts.

At the time of the broadcast American citizens will have been very on edge considering the events happening in the world around them; the anticipation of a second world war and the fact that it was Halloween night. The broadcast became famous for allegedly causing mass panic among its listeners however, many doubt the scale of panic that was claimed to have been made as the radio channel have relatively few listeners.

The War Of The Worlds is a historically significant media product as it was an early idea of how the media can persuade and effect peoples thoughts and views on the world around them and can influences a persons thoughts and feelings towards a specific thing whether it be political or an opinion on a book. The War of the Worlds broadcast is also considered an early form of ‘fake news’ as it supposedly had some members of the American public believing that there had been an alien invasion on earth.

The War of the Worlds was an episode of the American radio drama anthology series The Mercury Theatre on the Air meaning that new, unrelated classic literary works were published on air each week for one hour. It was performed and broadcast live as a Halloween epsiode at 8pm on Sunday, October 30, 1938. This meant that the episode was airing where there were significant unrest about possible war (broadcasted one year before world war 2).

War of the Worlds was set in a present day setting which meant that the events were told in real time. Telling a story in a real time setting enforces a sense of reality to the story, as if it is a real event that is actually happening. Furthermore, the tone of war of the worlds addresses the events in a report like manner, as well as using real locations in the southeast of England. This results in the location names being an anchor to suspend disbelief for the audience – to create a realistic impression of the order of events.

Radio’s prime use in this period was to report on news events nationally and globally, but had a main focus on events in Europe due to rising tensions for World War 2. This meant that a lot of radio reporting was based on talk of invasion and violence. War of the Worlds, with its fictional reporting on an alien invasion, could have easily been mistaken for real news. This meant that all it took was for someone to flip to the wrong channel and then a case of mass panic and mass hysteria. This further caused mass panic when the newspapers caught onto this case and reported with misleading headlines talking about “invasion” or “mass hysteria”, for example. Due to the nature of this, many people took it seriously, and although there have been many exaggerated reports, many did reckless things due to widespread panic.

This was one of the first reports of fake news. Ronald Barthes’ idea of myths fits in to the whole concept of fake news here, with a radio play taken out of context resulting in public belief of invasion, a myth of a ‘war happening today’, enforced by radio reports of ‘the eve of war’ enforcing the myth.