• War of the Worlds was a special edition episode of the radio series The Mercury Theatre on the Air as a Halloween special.
• It was directed and narrated by Orson Welles  as an adaptation of  H. G Well’s novel, “The War of the Worlds” (1898)
• Broadcast live at 8pm on October 30th, 1938 through the CBS Radio Network (provides news  to more than 1,000 radio stations throughout the U.S) 
•   The episode is famously known for inciting panic from the public by convincing some members of the audience that an alien invasion was happening.
• The program begins with a monologue resembling the introductory monologue in the original novel
• It then follows on to the usual radio show (music/speaking) where it is then periodically interrupted by news bulletins talking about explosions on mars.
• An on-scene reporter describes the crisis in a sense of panic before the feed goes dead.
• After a series of news updates the presenter goes into silence where a radio operator asks “Is there anyone on the air? Isn’t there… anyone?” with no response. The program takes its first break thirty minutes after Welles’s introduction.
• The broadcast ends with a brief “out of character” announcement by Welles in which he compares the show to “dressing up in a sheet and jumping out of a bush and saying ‘boo!'”
  • In the days following, widespread outrage was expressed in the media. The program was described as “deceptive” by newspapers and opinion leaders.
  • This lead to an outcry against the broadcasters and implications for a regulatory assessment by the FCC.
  • Welles then apologized at a news conference the next morning, and no punitive action was taken.
  • The broadcast and subsequent publicity brought the 23-year-old Welles to the attention of the general public leaving him with the reputation of a storyteller and “trickster”
  • “I had conceived the idea of doing a radio broadcast in such a manner that a crisis would actually seem to be happening, 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.” – Welles
  • Welles took inspiration from Ronald Knox’s radio hoax “Broadcasting the Barricade” which was broadcast by the BBC in 1926
  • Actor Stefan Schnabel recalled sitting in the anteroom after finishing his on-air performance. “A few policemen trickled in, then a few more. Soon, the room was full of policemen and a massive struggle was going on between the police, page boys, and CBS executives, who were trying to prevent the cops from busting in and stopping the show. It was a show to witness.”
    • Due to some listeners only hearing a portion of the broadcast and in the tension and anxiety prior to World War II mistook it for a genuine news broadcast. 
    • Thousands shared the false reports with others or called CBS, newspapers, or the police to ask if the broadcast was real.
    • Many newspapers assumed that the large number of phone calls and the scattered reports of listeners rushing about or fleeing their homes proved the existence of a mass panic
    • The broadcast was even shown flashing in Times Square (New York)
    • Host Jack Paar of the Tonight Show received calls to the studio asking if the world was coming to an end. After Paar denied it listeners started to accuse him with “covering up the truth”
    • On November 2, 1938, the Australian newspaper The Age  characterized the incident as “mass hysteria” and stated that “never in the history of the United States had such a wave of terror and panic swept the continent”. Unnamed observers quoted by The Age commented that “the panic could have only happened in America”

Media Institutions

• Broadcast by Columbia Broadcasting Company – an institution still in existence (a television and radio network) today.
• Radio broadcasting was seen as competition to newspapers which had previously been the only way of receiving news.
• Radio broadcasting was regulated by the Federal Communications Commission
• They also investigated the broadcast to see if it had broken any laws.
• The broadcast provides an excellent example to consider the effect of individual producers on media industries (known as ‘auteur theory’) as this is the work of Orson Welles.
• Auteur theory is an artist with a distinctive approach whose control is so unbound but personal that they are likened to be the “author”.

Media Audiences

• Gerbner: Cultivation Theory – People who are more exposed to “living” in the television world, the more likely they are to believe that social reality aligns with the reality portrayed on television
• Exposure to media affects a viewer’s perceptions of reality, drawing attention to three aspects: institutions, messages, and publics – linking to mainstreaming and how viewers develop a common outlook.