Why did the airing of HG Well's novel "War of the Worlds" on the radio cause so much panic? What would it take to cause that type of panic from a Hoax like "War of the Worlds" in this day and age? First and foremost, the 1.2 million U.S. radio listeners who panicked on Halloween night, 1938, were part of a new technology that had not yet developed to the point in which the majority could critically analyze what came over the airwaves. To those early listeners, espcecially those who tuned in after the caveat about entertainment, the realism and stage-play of Orson Welles' broadcast sounded so real, and so plausible, that they could not help but believe it -- after all, it sounded like a news broadcast (Radio: Anatomy of a Panic, 1940). People have become far more cynical, and with the advent of the fantastic special effects that...
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