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.

stuart hall – encode -> decode

stuart hall – reception theory

two step flow model:

by paul lazarfield

• depicts audience as passive not active in that audience consumption is based on what others think

To what extent do television producers attempt to target national and global audiences and subject matter and distribution?

the missing & AUDIENCE THEORY

Media Language:

• how the different modes and language associated with different media forms communicate multiple meanings
  • the codes and conventions of media forms and products, including the processes through which media language develops as genre 
  • how audiences respond to and interpret the above aspects of media language 
  • the way media language incorporates viewpoints and ideologies.

Representations:

• the processes which lead media producers to make choices about how to represent events, issues, individuals and social groups
  • the effect of social and cultural context on representations
  • how audiences respond to and interpret media representations
  • the impact of industry contexts on the choices media producers make about how to represent events, issues, individuals and social groups.

Industries:

• how media organisations maintain, including through marketing, varieties of audiences nationally and globally
  • the relationship of recent technological change and media production, distribution and circulation
  • processes of production, distribution and circulation by organisations, groups and individuals in a global context.

Audiences:

• how audiences are grouped and categorised by media industries, including by age, gender and social class, as well as by lifestyle and taste
  • how media producers target, attract, reach, address and potentially construct audiences
  • how media industries target audiences through the content and appeal of media products and through the ways in which they are marketed, distributed and circulated
  • how specialised audiences can be reached, both on a national and global scale, through different media technologies and platforms

With reference to Witnesses (Les Temoins, France) and The Missing (UK).

 Witnesses (Les Temoins, France):

• product of French public service broadcaster – France 2 –  associated with quality, serious drama in continental Europe
  • France 2 were able to develop the series in the context of new opportunities for distribution and exhibition – e.g. the Walter Presents platform in the UK which is a subsidiary of C4, exploiting broadcast and digital opportunities. Series distributed in US, Australia, Europe
  • style, content and characters of the series deliberately designed to replicate international success of Nordic Noir in order to target audiences beyond the national
  • The Missing contains a mix of French regional, local identity with more familiar genre conventions and characters
  • the series was marketed using familiar (to national audiences) actors but focused on the familiar iconography of the thriller and horror aspects abroad
  • the postmodern, hyperreal style is fashionable; internationally recognizable and popular.

hyperreality – the inability to distinguish between fiction and fact (hyper-realism) – the missing

The Missing (UK):

• subject matter is both nationally specific and deals with global issues
• • BBC Worldwide, as a powerful international institution, is able to target a global audience unrelated to the national audience
  • co-production between BBC and Starz as a means of addressing audiences and extending appeal across nations
  • the second series is promoted in the context of the existing popular brand which includes the popular thriller genre and distinctive storytelling based on time slip elements (product identity)
  • the cast is balanced to be familiar and different to both national and international audiences (familiar British and French TV and film stars)
  • themes and setting are constructed to appeal to an international audience: setting Europe and the Middle East. Themes span the domestic and global – family melodrama, fictionalised reference to recent wars and themes of immigration
  • conscious exploitation of global social media landscape to create both anticipation and ongoing interest (especially Twitter: 1000 tweets a minute). – TWO STEP FLOW – PAUL LAZARFIELD – users tweeted about the show to to other people meaning there were thousands of opinion leaders to influence th general public – advertising the show.

paradigm – example, model, standard

theorists

ronald barthes – myths

saussure – signs and signifiers

c s pierce –

• uses the public sphere to enforce political opinions (right wing politics) and to integrate them into the public consciousness
• manipulation – (chomsky, manufacturing consent)
• Structures of ownership
  The role of advertising
  Links with ‘The Establishment’
  Diversionary tactics – ‘flack’
  Uniting against a ‘common enemy’

AGENDA SETTING

FRAMING

MYTH MAKING

CONDITIONS OF CONSUMPTION

• the media acts as ‘watchdog’ to enforce right and wrongs