What Is The Panic In H. G. Wells The War Of The Worlds

There was an immediate feeling of disturbance on the air when the new of the JFK assassination started to spread. People gathered around televisions wherever they could

First, their lack of emotion shows that news coverage was very straight forward and to the point. They read through the teleprompter like a flat lined story. If this occurred today, I know I would see news reporters expressing the news in a more passionate manner, depending on how they would like to steer the information given. One statement that was given from a news anchor from NBC News was, “In Downtown Dallas, President Kennedy was shot in Downtown Dallas. His wife was next

“Reports of suicides and panic-related deaths.” (Pooley, Socolow 5) These are some of the claims reported after the famous radio broadcast of the book The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells was conducted by Orson Welles on October 30th, 1938. It was set-up and produced to sound like a news broadcast that had sudden “interruptions.” The broadcast included many noises and sounds such as Martians landing and scientists “analyzing” them. While many newspapers claimed that the broadcast “stirred terror through the U.S.” (1) Less than 2% of everyone listening to their radios that evening heard it and even fewer believed it! There are many speculations as to why the broadcast is so famous. The so called “terror inducing” (2) broadcast is famous because people believed that it was real, newspapers made a big hype about it, and it was such a phenomenon that people believed it.

In the article America under attack I: a reassessment of Orson Welles’ 1938 war of the worlds broadcast the author argues the significant impact on Orson Welles’s media sense impacted the effective radio formats from the previous years. Welles used three types of techniques to send a clear message to his audience, his way of convincing the general public, with his powerful voice, and the way others reacted to the event. The world was in a panic when they heard the radio on October 30, 1938. Some say it was a scary night. It was a broadcast of War of the Worlds a radio show that shocked the nation. Many Americans were so frightened that they were being invaded by Martians. There were many people attempting

‘They’re bombing New Jersey” (Radio listeners in panic taking war drama as fact). In 1938 Orson Welles had created a drama at New Jersey and New York the drama was created for entertainment but ended up scaring many people. “The War Of The Worlds” radio play terrified over a million people who thought it was real because many people had missed the beginning. There was even a weather report that had sounded real. Finally the actors and actresses that Orson Welles used there acting and there emotions sounded real.

For this week’s post I listened to Orson Welles and The Mercury Theater’s ‘War of the Worlds’ radio broadcast. The broadcast is one hour – long and what seems to be about an alien invasion in New Jersey. My first reaction to this post even before listening to the broadcast or reading articles was a little uneasy. You can say that I was a little anxious about this post due to my personal beliefs of not speaking about the unknown; however I will not be getting an F any time sooner. Anyways, I don’t listen to the radio unless it’s music related so you can surely understand why I would not be interested in a radio adaptation of a novel, especially one related with alien invasions. This broadcast, however left me wanting more even after being scared

War continues to be a vast topic in not only in the story but, also plays a big role in today’s issues. We hear about war all the time whether it’s through school or social media and it heavily impacts our lives. A main discussion in “Watchmen” there were multiple conversations between people about a possible World War III that could occur. A. Not only do we encounter this topic in stories but we also see them in headlines and new stories. In our country we many issues with war whether it’s terrorist attacks from ISIS or it’s bomb threats from North Korea.

What would it be like to think that the whole world was dying and there was no way for anyone to stop it? Would one be able to succeed in defeating the technology placing our race in peril, or would it be beyond our intellect to triumph against such science? Would one attempt to stay and fight or would one attempt to scamper for life? It is within human nature to react in one of those ways. We all have a natural instinct to survive, and so people will panic and try to save themselves when there is impending doom. The science-fiction film, The War of the Worlds (2005), depicts what the survival instinct is like in the most hopeless of situations. With aliens invading the Earth, using technology that nobody had seen before, the survival instinct

Listeners thought from the multiple different newscasters, theme music, commercials, and the breaking news portion that they were listening to an actual newscast. There were stories reported that people actually left their homes because they thought Martians were invading America. Others called the police, new stations, radio stations and many other media outlets afraid of what they heard on the radio the night before.

not wear a hat he was accused of being poor and even if he was middle

Next, the breaking news bulletins were normal because of the recent war scare, according to the New York Times article “The war of the world’s.” Lastly, the play included sound effects that seemed realistic and professional articles that gave authentic interviews.

Through realistic news coverage scenes, War of the Worlds tells the story of Martians invading the United States of America. Orson Welles formated the show like that because he wanted to create a show that felt real as you listened to it, and be distinct from any other radio show playing at the time. He got the idea from Ronald Knox's radio hoax Broadcasting the Barricades, about a riot overtaking London, even though Knox’s show ended in rioting. He was also influenced by another radio play he was in, Fall of the City, in which Welles played an omniscient announcer, and used the personality of that character for the one in War of the Worlds. When Welles presented

In the article “Interpreting The Day the Earth Stood Still for Contemporary Film Audiences,” written by Joshua Pardon, the author reviews the original 1950s films “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” which was directed by Robert Wise and based on Harry Bates’ 1940 short story “Farwell to the Master.” In the introduction, Pardon states, “clearly, this film was trying to communicate many messages to the American film audience of 1951: a warning about the societal costs of atomic technology, an early attempt at criticizing the mass media, a disturbingly ambiguous commentary on militarism” (pg.142). He then goes on to explain how you can use the film and apply it to our society today with topics such as, the media, military and science. Pardon then

To get more information on the occurrence of today, September 1, 1939, this reporter interviewed a local citizen, Stephen Moore. Stephen states in concern, “I am afraid this is going to be the outbreak of another war.”

My thesis should have gone, I will tell you about the book war of the worlds, then how they would put on the play, and why it scared so many people. That was the way my thesis should have gone but I got nervous right before the speech. I think it was an easy speech to fallow, just the thesis caused some problems. I used the transition words first, next, and finally. These words helped smooth over my transitions between the war of the worlds book and Orson Welles play. I did use each a statistic, expert opinion, and a quote. The statistic was the estimated 1 million people that were freaking out when the Martians landed. The expert opinion was Brad Schwartz cowriter of the documentary about War of the Worlds for the PBS series American Experience, and Jennifer Hunter of the Toronto Star agreed that it was a difficult time in America. Jennifer wrote “The Second World War was about to begin in Europe; the Depression was still in effect. With massive unemployment in America, the scare caused by the kidnapping of the Charles Lindbergh baby, the closure of banks, the terrible hurricane that slammed New England, people were