War of the Worlds Flashcards
When was the broadcast?
October 30th, 1938.
What was significant about the year 1938?
Sept 1938 Hitler had annexed parts of Czechoslovakia and created the ‘Sudetenland’. Americans became used to frequent interruptions to their radio programmes regarding the situation of Europe.
Many who listened may have thought it was a German invasion
What was the broadcast a part of?
‘The Mercury Theatre on Air’ (MTOA) series of live radio drama adaptations of novels and plays directed and narrated by Orson Welles.
Broadcasts included Dracula, The Count of Monte Cristo, and Treasure Island
What radio network broadcasted the programme?
CBS, but it was aired by the WABC in New York.
How did the nature of the programme itself further the illusion of realism?
- MTOA= sustaining programme w/out commercial breaks. 1st break came almost 30 mins in.
- 1st two-thirds of broadcast presented as a series of simulated news bulletins
- Presented as a regular light music programme interrupted by news bulletins
How is the programme a hybrid product?
Mixes fiction genre w/news conventions
How is the announcer used to further the sense of realism?
- Speaks directly to “listeners”, “just a moment, ladies and gentlemen”
- Begins w/interview w/scientists factually describing strange behaviour observed on Mars
How does the programme use the journalist at the farm to further the sense of realism?
- Hesitation of journalist at the farm, as if he’s just seeing it and is unsure of what he’s looking at
- Use of experts eg the Professor
- Journalist unable to control loud crowd in background (diegetic sound), man arguing w/police officer in the background, calling for the farm owner to speak louder, etc
Did the programme have ads?
There were no commercial ads for the Mercury Theatre on Air- could schedule breaks as appropriate within the programme instead of around ads
General industry context
- Made in ‘golden age’ of radio.
- Auteur/director as a brand -Secured Orson Welles as a dramatist
- Outrage in the media- calling for regulation, complaints to Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
Radio was a relatively new medium in the 1930s and 40s. How could this have provoked the newspaper backlash to War of the Worlds?
- Competed 4 ad revenue- opposition in newspapers to cause distrust (moral panic) debate
- Media attention may have reflected newspapers fears, attempt to discredit radio
- Newspapers published 12,500 articles in 3 weeks
What was the impact of the broadcast and the initial response to in media more generally?
Historical significance as an early, documented, example of mass media apparently having a direct effect on an audience’s behaviour.
What was the impact of the broadcast on media audience research?
Academic research carried out into broadcast (and the ongoing dispute about the extent of the effect) provided some of the early media audience research
- Research into alleged ‘moral panic’
How might the time audiences tuned in to the broadcast affect the realistic sense of the broadcast?
- Audience may have been listening to Edgar Bergen (ventriloquist) and then tuned in to WOTW during a musical interlude, thereby missing the clear introduction that the show was a drama.
- According to WABC, it made it clear 4 times on the program that it was fiction
What evidence is there that the programme did have a significant negative impact?
Chaotic aftermath:
- Allegedly 2,000+ calls to police
- Studio apparently invaded by police/scripts destroyed/ calls to switchboard/ mobs in streets/ reports of deaths
