The October 30, 1938, broadcast of the War of the Worlds has generated some significant debate. Much of that debate is about the “nature of the hoax” and the revisionist history crowd has suggested the panic wasn’t anything near what the conventional wisdom suggests it was.
As I stated in class, I don’t believe the revisionist history is entirely correct. The Federal Government pushed hard for an apology from Wells, and newspapers for a couple of days after the show were still talking about cases where people had acted out as if they believed the broadcast.
The problem, of course, with revisionist history is that it looks at historical events through a modern lens. The simple fact is that in 1938 radio was the primary home entertainment mechanism. The technology, which had been around for awhile, had been assimilated, but not always understood by its users. To compare it to today, I would suggest people who use social media don’t always understand the implications of the use. They know how to use it, but often don’t think on the larger implications of leaving a massive digital footprint.
People in 1938 were not media literate in the way people today are, although even today, that’s still debatable. Consider that the format of the broadcast was developed specifically to imitate what radio sounded like at the time. Frankly, the genius of the event is why we still talk about it today.
In this course, I want you to think hard about media as an industry, but also how you consume that media, and what that really means. I think this historic event, panic causing or otherwise, is one example where everyone can stop to think about media usage, and this seems like an opportunity to ask a relatively fundamental question: Could a hoax like the War of the Worlds broadcast work today? Why or why not?
Consider as part of your answer how we interact with media today. Are we more skeptical than earlier generations? There’s lots of fake content on the internet. Is that the content the modern version, perhaps even a descendant, of Well’s broadcast? Also consider addressing what it might take to pull something like this off, at the War of the Worlds scale, if someone were to try to do it again. Assume that you could, but then think about how you would do it. What circumstances might work? Why? The intent here is to get you to think on the nature of your own media use. Can you be fooled the way the folks who panicked about the broadcast? Why or why not?
