War Of The Worlds Analysis

In the radio presentation of War of the Worlds on the date of October 30th, 1938, on Sunday at 8:00 pm, radio announcer Orson Welles gave a performance that threw the nation into chaos, hysteria, and overwhelming fear. There were reports of suicide attempts, mass exodus by people trying to escape, people begged the police for gas masks, and even asked electric companies to cut their power so that the martians couldn’t see their lights. I found it difficult to listen due to the compelling delivery of the story by Mr. Welles. His voice causes the listener to want to hear the story, his tone and inflections gave the story real credibility. Because of the credibility that Orson Welles loaned to this, it can make the listener have a sense of fear, even when they know that it is not real. It reminded me very much of hearing ghost stories as a child and knowing that they were not true, but still had the capacity to scare you. To me this presentation was extremely pessimistic and discouraging, it is revealed at the end of the program when the martians are destroyed

The only possible way that this could be pulled off in this day and age would be a complete takeover of all technology at a simultaneous time, or by blocking any competing technology and only allowing one avenue of information. Also, due to the expansive number of channels available to the public, the likely hood of a million listeners, like the number Orson Welles received, would be very difficult to attain in a concentrated area, such as the United States. The reaction to this program was more intense because of the reduced availability of radio programs. Communication in 1938 moved slowly, so there would have been a window of time where people would have been unable to find out whether it was true or