The War of The Worlds was broadcast in America by CBS radio, as part of The Mercury Theater’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.

 The broadcast employs cultivation theory by using the codes and conventions of genuine news reports multiple times to convince the listener that what they are listening to is actually real, while also exposing, in the vein of Barthes, how the professionalism of news reports does not mean they are more truthful or trustworthy than any other information source can be. 

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. 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 influence a person’s thoughts and feelings .  Even though people are more aware of the role the media plays, people are still susceptible to believing it.