read the Martians in New Jersey, your assignment  is to reflect on the power of mass media. Specifically, you should write a short (200-300 words) essay that: 1. explains why you think so many people believed a ridiculous theatrical performance was a real space invasion, and 2. considers if a similar event could occur with any of today’s media. You should support your positions with logical arguments, evidence, and examples taken from your textbook, the film, and the information provided above.    film resource:

1938 found the United States in the depths of the Great Depression. To allieviate poverty, President Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act to raise minimum wage to 40 cents an hour. Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was released in theatres. The first Superman comic also appeared this year. The dominant form of media in America, however, was the radio.

Americans gathered around radios for music, news, and entertainment. Hit songs on the radio came from young stars like Perry Como, Ella Fitzgerald, and Bing Crosby. The news, however, was dominated by the rising tensions in Europe. In March, Germany took over Austria. In September, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain attempts to appease Hitler by agreeing to allow Germany to invade Czechoslovakia in exchange for a promise of future peace. On October 1st, Germany invaded Czechoslovakia. On October 29th, Germany began rounding up Jews.

On October 30th, 1938, CBS Radio’s evening line-up including Mercury Theatre on the Air, created by Orson Wells. This weekly, hour long broadcast used an ensemble cast to perform adaptations of literary works like Treasure Island and A Tale of Two Cities. On this night, they performed a unique adaptation of H.G. Wells, War of the Worlds. 

Estimates vary greatly, but some have said that six million people listened to the broadcast, with as many as 1.7 million believing it was a true newscast. Some listeners called loved ones to say goodbye or ran into the street armed with weapons to fight off the invading Martians of the radio play. In Grovers Mill, New Jersey, a place between West Windsor and Princeton, some listeners reported seeing fires and even fired gunshots at a water tower they thought to be a Martian landing craft. One listener drove through his own garage door in a rush to escape the area. Two Princeton University professors spent the night searching for the meteorite that had supposedly preceded the invasion. As calls came in to local police stations, officers explained that they were equally concerned about the problem.

The New York Times article on the next day’s front page reported:

A wave of mass hysteria seized thousands of radio listeners between 8:15 and 9:30 o’clock last night when a broadcast of a dramatization of H. G. Wells’s fantasy, “The War of the Worlds,” led thousands to believe that an interplanetary conflict had started with invading Martians spreading wide death and destruction in New Jersey and New York.

The broadcast, which disrupted households, interrupted religious services, created traffic jams and clogged communications systems, was made by Orson Welles, who as the radio character, “The Shadow,” used to give “the creeps” to countless child listeners. This time at least a score of adults required medical treatment for shock and hysteria.

In Newark, in a single block at Heddon Terrace and Hawthorne Avenue, more than twenty families rushed out of their houses with wet handkerchiefs and towels over their faces to flee from what they believed was to be a gas raid. Some began moving household furniture.

Throughout New York families left their homes, some to flee to near-by parks. Thousands of persons called the police, newspapers and radio stations here and in other cities of the United States and Canada seeking advice on protective measures against the raids.