Listening to Mercury Theater/Orson Welles’ War Of The Worlds in full made me realize how I’d also be fooled. I’d question it but I’d still somehow believe everything. 7:15 minutes into it and they sound like they are doing an important report/ investigation. The clock noise in the background sounds intense and adds to the mystery as they unravel the events that they are describing. “Special interview with professor Pearson” at 9:28, then the three explosions? Reported meteor!!? I’d quickly walk over to my mom to turn on the radio from the room she’s in. I wouldn’t think twice I’d it’s fake news or not. “Look around” the speaker would tells the listener as they set the scene with the windy sounds they created in the studio at 12:02. So much information was given during that broadcast duration as if it was a real news report.
With the amount of information that the broadcasters had shared it’d be easy to believe that earth was invaded by outsiders. I also could imagine hearing my mom talking with her cousins about what’s being reported on the radio as well. You can see her worried expression. Omg there was a little bit of glitching and so much commotion from the people investigating. His descriptions of the Martian’s! In the timestamps of 16:15 things are getting tensed… They set the scene of what’s happening so well and are great at using the radio. Think about it? Where else could you find fast news from in the 1930s?
The Night America Trembled 1957-H.G. Wells War Of The worlds; Time stamps, 32.57 minutes it shows that the raídos stories are gravely affecting the police stations and seems to be making people call the station, meaning the police are receiving multiple calls from people. It’s terrible to see how back in War Of Worlds there were only radio stations as “reliable sources of news,” newspapers, and magazines as well. 41:44 and a few minutes before show an older woman’s expression of hopelessness and fear and the babysitter calling for help from the parents “hurry hurry!” shows examples of how fake news can have big effects on people’s safety.
The internet and the radio have things in common. When the police say “no I don’t have that information yet,” Yet the radio is making this commentary and acting like they are exactly there is scary. They read from a script and are focused on sounding genuinely scared. Just like the internet now, they are both paranoia inducing, they present things as if they are factual and dangerous to the public.
If I was there I would have felt awfully uncomfortable turning on the news and reading newspapers. I would refrain myself from ever doing this. It seems to give people this sense of restlessness. 36:47 watching the babysitting girl listening to the news and her expression is what I imagined my mom doing. People nowadays look at the news and think the world is ending. We don’t know how to handle such intense information especially with the way the radio is giving the news. They are acting like they are in a movie, that’s what’s horrible about War Of Worlds. The time around the 1950s, where things like the radio and newspapers were the only source of news and information can lead the public to believing in fake news.
Even now we get tricked into thinking the things are true when they aren’t. The more outrageous the news is, the more people view it. “The Martians are coming!”
As well as “I think this will be our last broadcasting.” Are both ways to get views out of the public. Think of YouTube and Clickbait, people are tricking the public into these crazy and insane things that happen to them when it could just be fake or it could be acting. Now in the present, 2020 it’s way too often that we can’t tell what’s real and what’s fake. It’s honestly too difficult to tell. That’s why it’s still so dangerous and scary when things like this pandemic and important news gets tangled in fake news. I think about the new ways our technologies are being used like deep fakes, and fake twitter accounts, hacked twitter accounts. People, and anyone I mean, can use these new updates to spread lies and fears.
Reading the articles “ The Infamous “War Of The Worlds” Radio Broadcast Was A Magnificent Fluke” made me realize that there was a mixture of experimenting and realizing they can get popularity from doing World Of Worlds. “no one involved with War of the Worlds expected to deceive any listeners, because they all found the story too silly and improbable to ever be taken seriously.” This opened a memory for me. of when i was younger, i believed that any monster on the television could come to life. Pranks and white-lies at the heat of the moment seem real to almost anyone, no matter what age they are. I remember how genuine my cousins sounded when I was smaller. Still part of me wants to believe it’s real when I know it was a lie. I understand how they wanted to create a new way of storytelling with actors and such terrifying descriptions. Though imagine all the stories of aliens on Netflix, many people believe them and have some sort of paranoia of aliens and things outside of our planet.
For every fake news there’s always going to be numerous people who believe or begin to believe the lies. It’s a mixture of wanting to believe and the already existing paranoia inside of them especially on those subjects, so in other words fake news triggers the already existing paranoia to increase in severity.
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