• 1938

andrew cresell wrote book “understanding radio”

says that radio is a blind medium = you cant see it ( you have images and p;pictures in your head)

aliens represent something

fake news is nothing new

“hard times are a breeding ground for misinformation”

• American science fiction disaster film directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Josh Friedman and David Koepp
• produced by Paramount Pictures and Dream Works Pictures.
• won Academy Awards nominations for Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Sound Editing.
• described as an anti-war film (civilians run and only try to save themselves and their family instead of fighting back against the alien Tripods)
• Debra Saundras (an american journalist) compared the film to independence day
• released in american Ziegfeld Theatre on June 23, 2005
• Director: Steven Spielberg

Budget: 132 million USD

Narrator: morgan freeman

Box office: 603.9 million USD

• example of hybrid radio film
• CBS broadcast
• was a Halloween special – broadcast in Halloween – was it a foax? was it deliberate
• suspending disbelief – people were distressed – are aliens real?
• interesting as its a layer over fake new over fake news
• they want you to believe it was real
• Stanley Cohen wrote a book “folk devils and moral panic” – every time something bad happens, blame the media. The media causes bad things

• it was performed and broadcasted live as a halloween episode at 8pm on over on Columbia broadcasting system radio network
• Sunday, October 30th 1938
• The episode became famous for allegedly causing panic among its listening audience, though the scale of that panic is disputed, as the program had relatively few listeners
• 1 hour programme
• released a year before WW2 – audience already distressed due to Austria war

The novel was adapted for radio by Howard Koch, who changed the primary setting from 19th-century England to the contemporary United States