War of the Worlds Radio Broadcast 1938

ALL 4 ELEMENTS!! Language, Representation, Industries, Audience 

Example of hybrid radio form - adaptation of H.G Welles victorian story using news and documentary conventions - OW wanted to adapt it for a modern American audience, utilising the genre of early documentaries. 

Response to it's broadcast has historical significance as it shows the mass media has an affect on audience behaviour. Although there is continuing dispute about the extent of the effect. 

Narrative: 23 year old Orson Wells wanted to combine sci-fi and radio, he had a regular radio show with "the Mercury Theatre on air"  - formed in 1937 - but listeners were low. 

Media Language: 

• Use of fake news broadcasts and other genres; science fiction, documentaries, live coverage, light entertainment and story telling. 1st 2/3rds of the 1 hour broacast = news bullentins, intially interrupting a programme of dance and music.
• Loose adaptation of H.G. Wells novella 'The War of the Worlds' - one of the earliest examples of science fiction, orginally appeared in Cosmopolitan, it had been serialised! Earliest = Frankenstein. 
• The setting - Grover's Mill Farm was extremely ordinary and therefore increased the likelihood of the story being real!
• 1938 - radio = a relatively new mass media technology, but it held power and influence, on 24 hours a day - in your home! It was a trusted source of information, particularly as Hitler's threat began to increase. It's power was recognised by the effects it had on it's audience and it's nickname as the Panic Broadcast. In competition with Cinema and newspapers.
• By 1940 83% of US households owned a radio
• hybrid genre = unfamiliar at the time of the broadcast, audiences were used to clear boundaries between fact and fiction 
• OW frames the story with an introduction and epilogue. Linear and chronological narrative which unfolds in 'real time.' Many narrative viewpoints, shifts into 1st person making it unreliable.
• Also belongs to the Sci-Fi genre, which often looks into a dystopian future and the potential for destruction from a threat like alien invaders. It contains many sub-themes, often manipulates fact but difficult to define. The WoW approach has been reinvigorated in 'found footage films' e.g. Blair Witch Project which use the illusion of real time

Media Representations

• How is reality represented? - Seems like reality because reporter apologises for any delays, the language used is extremely colloquial, presence of authority - police. 
• Signifiers for different groups/social classes - owner of the farm, limited language and regional accent - "kinda like a fourt' of July rocket" - juxtaposes the professor's advanced technologically, accurate lexis. Hierarchy in society - gaps between rich and poor. Authority represented…