In this day and age, to frighten the nation's population in the manner Welles was able to would be nearly impossile. I think the main reasons why the radio broadcast was so frightening have become virtual non-issues.
Media Analysis is a huge contributor to this. People today don't automatically believe everything they see in the media. Our media literate population questions the truth behind what they hear through the media, even when it is accurate. THere is also the matter of education. In general, people today are more effeciantly educated than people in Welles' day. American's would look for authority and evidence to support the "disaster", and they would be more efficient at finding out that it was a ruse. Our methods of communications are more up to date, allowing the chain of information to grow rapidly util everyone was informed that the matter was not serious. I also believe that our producers would make more of an effort to advertise for their program, which would allow it to be billed as a fiction work, and not real. I also presume that if our media producers of today would not intentionaly try to scare our public. THey would fear the repercussions fromcritics and the public for obvious reasons cited in this link. THus they would aoid confusing the public beyond what was necessary to enjoy the broadcast. Finally, i think it would not take more than a few moments for today's government oto figure out what was going on and put a stop to any sign of "mass hysteria".
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment