December 3, 2014:

Radio Sensationalism 1 of 2:  War of the Worlds

We generally think of Sensationalism as a type of editorial bias in mass media in which events and topics in news stories and pieces are over-hyped to increase viewership or readership numbers.  Back in the mid-20^th century and earlier, as the radio became accessible to the public, skillful manipulation of the audiences came to a climax with two particular examples:  Orson Well’s fake 1938 radio announcement that the world was being  invaded by Martians and the evangelical charisma of Amy Semple McPherson.

Media tactics appeal to emotions, especially those of a controversial nature, intentionally omitting facts and information, and being loud and self-centered and acting to obtain attention. Trivial information and events are sometimes misrepresented and exaggerated as important or significant.

The War of the Worlds is a science fiction novel by English author H. G. Wells. It first appeared in serialized form in 1897 – the book has two parts, Book One: The Coming of the Martians and Book Two: The Earth under the Martians. The protagonist struggles to return to his wife while seeing the Martians lay waste to the southern country outside London.

The plot has been related to invasion literature of the time. The novel has been variously interpreted as a commentary on evolutionary theory, British Imperialism, and generally Victorian superstitions, fears and prejudices. At the time of publication it was classified as a scientific romance, like his earlier novel The Time Machine. The War of the Worlds has been both popular (having never gone out of print) and influential, spawning half a dozen feature films, radio dramas, a record album, various comic book adaptations, a television series, and sequels or parallel stories by other authors. The Martian invasion's principal weapons are the 'Heat-Ray' and the poisonous 'Black Smoke'. Their strategy includes the destruction of infrastructure such as armament stores, railways, and telegraph lines; it appears to be intended to cause maximum casualties, leaving humans without any will to resist. These tactics became more common as the 20th century progressed, particularly during the 1930s with the development of mobile weapons and technology capable of 'surgical strikes' on key military and civilian targets.

Wells's vision of a war bringing total destruction without moral limitations in The War of the Worlds were not taken seriously by readers at the time of publication.  H.G. Wells trained as a science teacher during the latter half of the 1880s. One of his teachers was T. H. Huxley, famous as a major advocate of Darwinism. Much of his work is notable for making contemporary ideas of science and technology easily understandable to readers.  In 1894 a French astronomer observed a 'strange light' on Mars, and published his findings in the scientific journal Nature on 2 August of that year. Wells used this observation to open the novel, imagining these lights to be the launching of the Martian cylinders towards Earth. The novel also presents ideas related to Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection, both in specific ideas discussed by the narrator, and themes explored by the story.  In an earlier essay he speculates about the nature of the Martian inhabitants and how their evolutionary progress might compare to humans. He also suggests that Mars, being an older world than the Earth, might have become frozen and desolate, conditions that might encourage the Martians to find another planet on which to settle.