Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise teams up anew to do a remake of HG Wells' The War of the Worlds. Actually, I wanted to start a topic 'bout the power/responsibility of media, but since it's a book that started the (quoted article), thought i'd just post it here. (okay, okay, nagpapadami lang talaga ako ng postings dito, sensya!):grin:

This one's from Charles Berlitz's World of the Odd and the Awesome (1991), p270

"Invasion from Mars

In the years before television the performance of one particular science fiction radio show, broadcast at a critical moment in world history, had an almost incredible effect on the listening audience. It happened in 1938, when the listening public was already psychologically prepeared for the possibility of a world war, just after the Munich debacle and the threatened invasion of neighboring countries by the governments of Germany and Italy.

The radio show was a dramatization of an imaginary invasion of Earth by forces from Mars, based on a science fiction fantasy, The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells. The actor Orson Welles was the narrator. Although the program was pre-announced as a radio dramatization only, Welles's masterful and exciting report of the invasion of Earth, specifically of northern New Jersey, by gigantic extraterrestrial-controlled robot towers that spread destruction through "death rays" aimed at civilians and troops, as well as on-the-spot interviews with "refugees" spread panic among the listeners who had tuned in after the program had started and, therefore, thought it was the latest news. As the listeners telephoned their friends and compared notes, they convinced each other that the invasion was actually taking place. The telephone lines were jammed with calls and excitement mounted. There was no further declaration on the air that the program was fictional. The panic spread, and the roads in New Jersey, parts of New York, and Long Island became blocked with cars filled with refugees, police cars, fire trucks, and motorcycles. The number of cars and accidents soon brought traffic to a standstill, and it took hours for state and local police to disentangle the traffic and restore order.

Even then, many of the fleeting thousands still believed that the space invasion was taking place and was being kept secret to avoid nationwide panic.

Sometime after the "Mars invasion" had calmed down, the program was rebroadcast in Spanish at a theater in Lima, Peru. Here public excitement reached such a point that rioting broke out during the show, causing fifteen deaths and many more injuries...."


Yan ha, mahabahabahaba to, so should anyone want to reply, quote nyo na lang yung particular sentence na naka-pique senyo, NOT the entire text. that is, kung meron magtitiyaga basahin to.



-najanaja