War Of The Worlds Broadcast

On October 30, 1938, a radio broadcast released an episode called “The War of the Worlds,” based off the 1898 novel written by H.G. Wells. The program, narrated by Orson Welles, had special news bulletins constantly interrupting the music and it suggested to viewers that real life aliens from Mars were currently invading Earth. Due to this stunt, a panic broke out upon the country, since numerous individuals considered this to be an authentic public service announcement about the end of the world. When I first heard that the podcast was going to discuss The War of the Worlds, I immediately thought about the book or the film adaptation with Tom Cruise. I was not aware that this broadcast, or the others that followed the original, had even

Each radio broadcast was relatively similar, except for some minor tweaks to the information about the location and time period, but nonetheless people still had this fear that there were actual alien invasions in progress. With this in mind, I believe it is entirely possible for another wave of panic and terror to occur if someone were to decide to remake the “War of the Worlds” news report. In the event that an instance like this were to transpire again, I would hope that citizens would check the facts and not become irrational; however, in past experiences it is clear that people tend to panic first and ask questions later. Although, an alien invasion might not be the best way to produce fear, instead the broadcast would receive more of a reaction from the citizens if per say ISIS or some other terrorist group invaded the U.S. With that type of supposed threat against America, I have no doubt that there’d be a nationwide panic on our hands. Then there would be the aftermath of this instance, and the citizens might not appreciate being lied to and may