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Monday, March 31, 2008
Simply an entertianment
When you have a free hour listen to RadioLab's show about Orson Welles's War of the Worlds broadcast. It's a story you've probably heard of before, certainly I have, but this pretty thorough. The show puts everything in an historic context. Best of all is the fact that the show spends a lot of time on night a radio station in South America that tried the same stunt, with far grimmer results.
It's amazing that in the earliest days of mass media Welles was there to manipulate it and expose the danger of it all. He wanted to tell people not to believe everything they hear. Instead we found out people will believe everything they hear, some people at least. What's funny is how those who were fooled just applied their own fears on the program. Many thought it was the Germans bombing New Jersey, disregarding that they were being told it was Martians. No matter what the dominant medium is, be it radio, TV or Internet, people will take slivers of fact and fill in the rest of the blanks with their own neuroses.
Permanent Link: 11:36 AM |
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