The episode is famous for inciting a panic by convincing some members of the listening audience that a Martian invasion was taking place, though the scale of panic is disputed, as the program had relatively few listeners.
“The War of the Worlds” was the 17th episode of the CBS Radio series The Mercury Theatre on the Air, which was broadcast at 8 pm ET on October 30, 1938
The program’s format is a simulated live newscast of developing events. The first two-thirds of the hour-long play is a contemporary retelling of events of the novel, presented as news bulletins interrupting programs of dance music.
“I had conceived the idea of doing a radio broadcast in such a manner that a crisis would actually seem to be happening,” said Welles, “and would be broadcast in such a dramatized form as to appear to be a real event taking place at that time, rather than a mere radio play.
The radio program begins as a simulation of a normal evening radio broadcast featuring a weather report and music by “Ramon Raquello and His Orchestra” live from a local hotel ballroom.
30:47 radio silence (BAD)
After the conclusion of the play, Welles reassumed his role as host and told listeners that the broadcast was intended to be merely a “holiday offering”, the equivalent of the Mercury Theater “dressing up in a sheet, jumping out of a bush and saying, ‘Boo!'”
The rapid expansion of radio in the 1930s into the homes of millions of Americans was a huge threat to the once dominant position of newspapers
we need to consider the historical and social context behind the broadcast. In terms of Stuart Hall’s reception theory and his encoding / decoding model of communication, this is the audience’s framework of knowledge.
