Media Factsheet
1) What is the history and narrative behind War of the Worlds?
Orson Welles’ 1938 radio play is an adaption of H.G. Wells’ novel of the same name, first published in 1898. It tells the story of an alien invasion and the ensuing conflict between mankind and an extra- terrestrial race from Mars. The text has been frequently interpreted as a commentary on British Imperialism and Victorian fear and prejudice. The book has been adapted for both radio and (several) films, including the 2005 version starring Tom Cruise. It was also famously turned into a best-selling musical album by Jeff Wayne in 1978 (recently updated by Gary Barlow as a touring stage musical).
Broadcast live on 30th October 1938, popular myth has it that thousands of New Yorkers fled their homes in panic, and all across America people crowded the streets to witness for themselves the real space battle between earth and the Martians.
3) How did the New York Times report the reaction the next day?
The following morning newspapers across the country revelled in the mass hysteria it had caused. The New York Times headline read, “Radio Listeners in Panic, Taking War Drama as Fact.”
Author Brad Schwartz in his 2015 book ‘Broadcast Hysteria: Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds and the Art of Fake News’ suggests that hysteria it caused was not entirely a myth. “Instead it was something decades ahead of its time: history’s first viral-media phenomenon.” He argues that “the stories of those whom the show frightened offer a fascinating window onto how users engage with media content, spreading and reinterpreting it to suit their own world views. But it’s even more important to understand how the press magnified and distorted those reactions, creating a story that terrified the nation all over again, so that we can recognise when the same thing happens today. Our news media still have a penchant for making us fear the wrong things, of inflating certain stories into false Armageddons, as they did with War of the Worlds.”
His version of War of the Worlds reworks a Victorian narrative about an alien invasion (which he considered “boring”) and turns it into an exciting radio play through his use of pastiche. By borrowing the conventions of the radio newscast, he is able to create real moments of shock and awe, which almost certainly account for the strong reaction it received. By creating a hybrid form – mixing conventional storytelling with news conventions – Welles blurred the boundaries between fact and fiction in a way that audiences had never experienced.
The broadcast is a significant example of how a media product constructs a representation of reality. Understanding the social context, including the issues and concerns of late 1930s America, helps to explain why the audience may have responded to the text as if it were real. In September 1938, one month prior to the plays broadcast, Hitler signed the Munich Agreement annexing portions of Czechoslovakia and creating the ‘Sudetenland’. Europe’s failed appeasement of Germany was viewed with much concern and for many it seemed that another world war was inevitable. At this time, both the radio networks, including CBS, frequently interrupted programmes to issue news bulletins with updates on the situation in Europe. As a result, audiences became familiar with such interruptions and were thus more accepting of Welles’ faux newscasts at the beginning of the play. Indeed, for the listeners, it didn’t sound like a play. This was further compounded by the fact they many listeners tuned into the broadcast five minutes after the start and would have missed the disclaimer. Instead what they would have heard were further interruptions, the convincing voices of experts and an eerie silence as a reporter’s words are cut off.
CBS
8) Why might the newspaper industry have deliberately exaggerated the response to the broadcast?
8) Why might the newspaper industry have deliberately exaggerated the response to the broadcast?
It has been suggested that the panic was trumped up by the newspapers to rubbish this new medium which it viewed as a huge threat. “Radio is new but it has adult responsibilities. It has not mastered itself or the material it uses,” said the editorial leader in the New York Times on November 1st 1938. Professors Jefferson Pooley and Michael J Socolow writing in Slate magazine in 2013 state: “How did the story of panicked listeners begin? Blame America’s newspapers. Radio had siphoned off advertising revenue from print during the Depression, badly damaging the newspaper industry. So, the papers seized the opportunity presented by Welles’s programme, perhaps to discredit radio as a source of news. The newspaper industry sensationalised the panic to prove to advertisers, and regulators, that radio management was irresponsible and not to be trusted.”
Orson Welles’ broadcast is frequently cited as an example to support passive audience theories, such as the Frankfurt School’s ‘Hypodermic Syringe Theory’. This states that audiences consume and respond to media texts in an unquestioning way, believing what they read, see or hear. This might be true of the audiences of the 1930s, unfamiliar with new media forms like radio, but in the modern age it carries less weight. It is questionable as to how far most of the audience were actually duped by the broadcast. As has been noted, those who ‘bought into’ the idea of an invasion, may well have been influenced by external factors such as the social and political context of the time. It was not impossible to believe that a foreign power was invading American soil in 1938.
10) How might Gerbner's cultivation theory be applied to the broadcast?
Gerbner’s Cultivation Theory might offer a more accurate explanation of the audience’s behaviour in response to the radio broadcast since it emphasises the longer-term effects that media texts have upon audiences. Based on his research into television viewing, cultivation theory states that high frequency viewers of television are more susceptible to media messages and the belief that they are real. Heavy viewers of TV are thought to be ‘cultivating’ attitudes that seem to believe that the world created by television is an accurate depiction of the real world. Applied to War of the Worlds it could be argued that an audience familiar with the frequent interruptions to radio shows over the weeks leading up to the broadcast did not question the faux invasion broadcasts during Welles’ production.
Stuart Hall’s Reception Theory is useful when considering how the audience for War of the Worlds interpreted the text (as either fact or fiction). He argues that audiences might read a media text in different ways. The dominant or preferred reading by the audience is the one intended by the creator of the text. However, a person might read it in an oppositional way depending upon factors such as their age, gender or background. For example, a young male is likely to ‘read’ page three of The Sun as a bit of harmless fun (the preferred reading), whereas a female might regard it as offensive. Hall also suggests that readings of a media text might be negotiated. This is an acceptance of the preferred reading but modified in a way that reflects the audience’s own position, experiences and interests.
The 1938 and 1949 radio broadcasts of War of the Worlds clearly had the power to deceive at least some of the listening audience, but could any media product create such an impact today? Are audiences too sophisticated and media-literate to be fooled by a similar stunt? In the late 1990s, and inspired by Orson Welles’ 1938 broadcast, two young filmmakers made the low budget film The Blair Witch Project. Supposedly made up ‘found footage’ shot by three student filmmakers who go missing while shooting a documentary about a local legend (the Blair Witch), the film sparked debate among audiences as to whether the footage was actually real. However, given that audiences received the text in a movie theatre (or on video and DVD) it is unlikely to have fooled the audience in quite the same way – or with the same authority – as a series of radio news bulletins.
1) Why do you think the 1938 broadcast of War of the Worlds has become such a significant moment in media history?
It shows how if media is constructed in a way, they can manipulate the audience into something is true when it fact it is all fake. Through carefully curated conventions audience is easily exploited into believing an event has happened when it is counterfeit.
2) War of the Worlds feels like a 1938 version of 'fake news'. But which is the greater example of fake news - Orson Welles's use of radio conventions to create realism or the newspapers exaggerating the audience reaction to discredit radio?
I believe in a way both really made it more believable, since without the New Yorks Time article less people would have believe that it was real news.
3) Do you agree with the Frankfurt School's Hypodermic Needle theory? If not, was there a point in history audiences were more susceptible to believing anything they saw or heard in the media?
3) Do you agree with the Frankfurt School's Hypodermic Needle theory? If not, was there a point in history audiences were more susceptible to believing anything they saw or heard in the media?
It is questionable as to how far most of the audience were actually duped by the broadcast. As has been noted, those who ‘bought into’ the idea of an invasion, may well have been influenced by external factors such as the social and political context of the time. It was not impossible to believe that a foreign power was invading American soil in 1938.
4) Has the digital media age made the Hypodermic Needle model more or less relevant? Why?
The hypodermic needle theory suggests a media text can have a powerful and immediate effect on the passive audience. I believe through this the digital age made it more relevant since many audiences seem to be more gullible these days and because now media dominates a main source of news income, people are really quick to believe what is being shown to them.
5) Do you agree with George Gerbner's Cultivation theory - that suggests exposure to the media has a gradual but significant effect on audience's views and beliefs?
Gerbner’s research suggested heavy users of television become more susceptible to its messages, especially if the texts resonate with the viewer. One army veteran said the radio play “was too realistic for comfort” while another New York resident was “convinced it was the McCoy” when the “names and titles” of different officials, such as the Secretary of the Interior, were mentioned in the script.6 Perhaps it was this group of listeners who believed the broadcast was an accurate report of events that night because they were already familiar with the special bulletin format, which were known then as break-ins, and assumed the war in Europe had intensified.
6) Is Gerbner's Cultivation theory more or less valid today than it would have been in 1938? Why?
Cultivation theory states that high frequency viewers of television are more susceptible to media messages and the belief that they are real. Heavy viewers of TV are thought to be ‘cultivating’ attitudes that seem to believe that the world created by television is an accurate depiction of the real world.
Comments
Post a Comment