Check out the following
Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/infamous-war-worlds-radio-broadcast-was-magnificent-fluke-180955180/#Fxjh4U6621RzVsSM.99
Additional Information:
Orson Welles was a famous American actor, director, writer, producer who worked in theatre, radio and films.
H.G. Wells was a pioneering science fiction novelist.
Do you think something like this can happen today? Why? Or Why not? Post your responses as comments before class on 30.7.18.
Go to the link given below if you wish to listen to what was originally broadcast.
On Halloween morning, 1938, Orson Welles awoke to find himself the most talked about man in America. The night before, Welles and his Mercury Theatre on the Air had performed a radio adaptation of H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds, converting the 40-year-old novel into fake news bulletins describing a Martian invasion of New Jersey. Some listeners mistook those bulletins for the real thing, and their anxious phone calls to police, newspaper offices, and radio stations convinced many journalists that the show had caused nationwide hysteria. By the next morning, the 23-year-old Welles’s face and name were on the front pages of newspapers coast-to-coast, along with headlines about the mass panic his CBS broadcast had allegedly inspired.
Welles barely had time to glance at the papers, leaving him with only a horribly vague sense of what he had done to the country. He’d heard reports of mass stampedes, of suicides, and of angered listeners threatening to shoot him on sight. “If I’d planned to wreck my career,” he told several people at the time, “I couldn’t have gone about it better.” With his livelihood (and possibly even his freedom) on the line, Welles went before dozens of reporters, photographers, and newsreel cameramen at a hastily arranged press conference in the CBS building. Each journalist asked him some variation of the same basic question: Had he intended, or did he at all anticipate, that War of the Worlds would throw its audience into panic?
Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/infamous-war-worlds-radio-broadcast-was-magnificent-fluke-180955180/#Fxjh4U6621RzVsSM.99
Additional Information:
Orson Welles was a famous American actor, director, writer, producer who worked in theatre, radio and films.
H.G. Wells was a pioneering science fiction novelist.
Do you think something like this can happen today? Why? Or Why not? Post your responses as comments before class on 30.7.18.
Go to the link given below if you wish to listen to what was originally broadcast.
https://ia800201.us.archive.org/1/items/OrsonWellesMrBruns/381030_64kb.mp3
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ReplyDeletePlease post your comments on the questions I have posed. Do you think a similar situationco could arise today? Why or why not?
DeletePlease post your comments regarding the questions I have posed.
DeleteSituations like this are not likely to happen today, as there are many advancements in the technology over recent decades. Mankind today are smart enough to be able to differentiate between fake and reality with the help of technology. Even if something like this is been aired on the radio, they scrutinize it properly before reacting.
Delete-Sevitha Darshini.
Thank you Sevitha. If people today are so smart then why is it that a phenomenon and a phrase such as "fake news" has begun to dominard our lives? Why then have there been so many instances of lynchings of people merely based on social media fake news?
DeleteI think the situation like this would never happen nowadays, because the technologies have improved and information provided on the social media are not easily believed by people, because everyone needs proof for everything.
ReplyDelete-Gayathri H
Thank you Gayathri. I want to ask you the same questions I asked Sevitha. Please read my reply to her.
DeleteSuch situations can't possibly happen in today's world. But the 'fake news' that we are bound to be involved in, is going to be much more subtle. We can't say with certainty that it's easy to eradicate fake news,taking into account that one of the World's biggest countries' election is believed to be rigged because of fake news.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely right Sivaa. Good example.
DeleteEven though technology has improved to a great extent today, huge platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp are still hotspots for the dissemination of fake news which has led to some dire consequences such as mob lynching in India. So, I feel that it is the mindset of the people that should improve and not just technology.
ReplyDelete- Naveen N S
Very true Naveen. In fact technology has made it easier to spread take news. And as you rightly pointed out, the people should take the responsibility to change rather than just allow technology to lead them along.
DeleteMaybe WhatsApp's new feature to highlight the forwarded messages could help tackle the spread of rumors.
ReplyDelete-Prasanth P
Thank you for bringing up that point Prasanth. We should wait and watch to see if it really helps.
DeleteAs bizzare as this article would seem to us, a generation currently in the age where rapid development of technology has given rise to vast amounts of data at our fingertips, a situation is like could very likely happen in the present. If anything, the unbridled access to information could prove as a catalyst for any hoax or rumor to be spread around like wildfire and perhaps even instigate suicides,mass hysteria and worldwide panic. However, the media and news agencies have complete control, directly or indirectly, of the content being circulated and hence would not end up like Orson Welles, who could not control the information once it was broadcasted
ReplyDelete-Sreevatsan A
I agree Sreevatsan. Today's world is a Mediacracy if I may use such a coinage.
DeleteInstead of just blindly Sharing the information,people could just google it to see the originality of the news.
ReplyDeleteTrue Bharat. However as we have already pointed out technology seems to make it easy to make fake news sound and seem very authentic. And yes we should take the rrsponresponsi to find out whether a news is authentic or fake.
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ReplyDeleteI think though this situation may not happen today as everyone has
ReplyDeleteupdating their knowledge about everything happening around them through news and social media, eveyone will belief something as true if somebody has insisted about it strongly.So,this situation only relies on the people who hearing this.If they are easily influenceable they will believe it or if they are unimpressionable they won't easily believe it.
Yes again Abinaya. People should be more responsible. No point blaming technology.
DeleteEven though we're reading this as a blog post, we have got to understand the amount of chaos created by a very playful Orson Welles. Some say that the world we know as it is, is an illusion created by a bunch of lies thrown at us repeatedly, by even worse people than Orson Wells, who are the most powerful in this world. The magnitude of chaos which would happen if such illusions were to break, is unimaginable and we've steer away from it.
ReplyDelete-Anirudh R
DeleteVery strong opinions, Anirudh. Am not sure if Orson Welles had any ulterior motives for what he did. As far as he was concerned, he was only doing his job, ie acting in a radio play. But today's media and politicians, I agree, do have an axe to grind when they create and spread fake news.
DeleteThe possibility of this kind of happening is less as people believe in science and technology. But people who lack fact based foundation are inevitable.
ReplyDelete-Nivetha B
I would say, Nivetha, that people's belief in science and technology is itself a weakness. They tend to believe all pseudoscientific claims. We must remember that criminals and antisocial elements also have access to technology. That's why it's important to distinguish between science itself and the scientific temperament.
DeleteYes,a similar bizaree situation could arise in present scenario.I am quite definite about it because of the recent "Lynching" incidents that are happening at various places in our country.The mob lynchings are fueled by WhatsApp messages and other social networking sites which have become a part and parcel of our day to day life.People tend to believe such absurd messages and react to it.If such mindset continues to exist among us then we will definitely be blindfolded and fail to examine the credibility of such messages.
ReplyDeleteSo basically the possibility of such situations depends on our level of perception.
Perfect example Aboorva. I completely agree with you.
DeleteNowdays,we have more technologies like Google to know actually what happened really...and people have to come out spreading and hearing rumors or fake news..-V.K.DEEPAK
ReplyDeleteTrue Deepak. But just today (I mean today the 27.7.18) there are numerous rumours flying thick and fast about the death of a veteran politician. But neither Google nor the media is able to give definitive news that is credible.
DeleteEven though technology has been improved still there are people with lack of facilities to knew the truth.Sometimes even educated people tend to believe without investigation.Media and Mobile spread more fake news which is mostly believed by the majority
ReplyDelete-THAMIL A R
True Thanks. In fact there was a recent study conducted by In fact rumours spread faster than true news. There has a systematic study of this conducted by researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 2006 - 17. Check out this info. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/08/technology/twitter-fake-news-research.html
DeletePersonally I feel that due to the technology available today incidents like these will never have such effect if people had the habit of verifying before believing such things. Whatsapp and Facebook are the two social media platforms which are highly filled with such content. Facebook is trying to flag contents which are fake. With measures like these fake news will cease to exist.
ReplyDelete- BALAJI.A.T
That's precisely the problem, Balaji. We refuse to verify whatever the circumstances.
DeleteThere's actually no use in blaming technology for such incidents. Its the mindset of the people that matters. While some people would rule out such posts as PR stunts to blindside the people from what actually matters there are those who wish to be a part of something that is currently trending and forward such fake news to everyone, even before analysing it.So its up to us to verify the authenticity of such news before spreading it and causing havoc. All we can do is hope that people have learnt their lesson and spend a minute of their time in verifying information before spreading it.
ReplyDeleteI agree Abhishek, the responsibility rests entirely with the people who should verify before believing something.
DeleteSuch situations have a less chance of happening in today’s tech era. Howerver, most people do believe what’s on the media news blindly. This article reminded me of a Hindi movie I watched recently- “Sanju”. An important scene from the movie is where Sanjay’s best friend breaks their friendship because he is misguided by the news that there were weapons hidden in Sanjays’s House. So I feel that we still get misled by such information, if it’s provided to us in the form of news.
ReplyDelete- Priyanka Balaji
True Priyanka. Some people will believe anything that the news channels feed them.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWe live in a technologically advanced age , so definitely people are not going to misunderstand a Martian invasion as something real. But when it comes to fake news there still are blindfolded people who get carried away by the fake news they hear and get enraged by it. We see something on the news channels and blindly believe them.But as literates we must know that even such channels are biased. So its really important that we know the full reality before we react to anything.
ReplyDeleteTrue Irin, as others also have pointed out the responsibility of checking before believing rests with us.
DeleteSuch circumstances should never happen in technologically developed world as we are trying to figure out many innovations. But when it comes in name of fake news people blindly start believing them. They are not even ready to get to know about the real fact.Mainly social media is responsible for spreading that kind of news.But there is no point in blaming the technology,people are responsible for it.
ReplyDelete-Madhumitha B
Absolutely right Madhumitha. People are responsible for what they choose to believe.
DeleteSuch a situation is just as likely to arise in today's world, probably not because of just one man's statement, but because of the quantity of exaggeration and false news social media has the ability to spread. Even when we want to verify a possible hoax, we google it. Very rarely do we approach a source other than the internet so I think we're just as prone to a situation like that today as well. So it entirely depends upon how we as people decide to perceive and handle the situation.
ReplyDelete- Shraddha
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ReplyDeleteEven though technology has been improved, still there are people 'who believe in something because they want it to be true' and share it just because they wanna share something. It appears that people are more willing to share fake news than accurate news. It’s that urge that fake news is designed to appeal to. “Fake news is perfect for spreadability".So I feel that people still get misled by such information.
ReplyDelete-Aishwarya B
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ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteAs many commented we are living in technological world where informations could spread in a matter of seconds. The incident stated above happened in 1938. But back in 2012 many people throughout the world went on to believe that the world is going to end that year on 21st of december. The mayan apocalypse,2012 movie and few other reasons became the influential factors for many people to believe this rumour. Even though many space organisations stated its not true people were never convinced.Those people who believed in that Continued to believe until that day as it never happened.The movie 2012 influenced as much as the radio play did in 1938. In my opinion people in this era may also believe such fake rumors not as blindly as it happened in one night in 1938.A few anonymous evidences, social media, movies are more likely to convince people's mind into believing it in a span of time.
ReplyDelete-Aishwarya V
In today's world,news is everything..New channels not only spread real news..They spread fake news as well..people are not able to categorize them..Some people blindly accept the fake news and start spreading them..Before doing these,one should think whether it could happen or not..Such martian invasion may or may not happen..That doesnt matter..But spreading such news only disturbs the world peace..Its the blunder of media spreading news that panic the people..
ReplyDelete-Keerthana C
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ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteIn today's world, we come across both real and fake news, so it's the people's responsibility to identify the fake news by confirming it with a trustworthy source. Sharing the news should be done only if the person knows it's correct not just because it's good to hear!...
ReplyDelete-Divya.B
Mass media has the potential to make people believe things. This kind of situation even happens today. Facebook and WhatsApp are taking efforts to prevent the fake news being spread. It is the responsibility of the content creators and the people who spread such news to ensure its correctness.
ReplyDeletePeople nowadays are more clever,they don't blindly believe in anything.The dimensions of the world has shrunk.The technology now helps them cross check information.So,event like this is not likely to occur.
ReplyDelete-aswath
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ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe possibilities of occuring like these kinds of situation are none . Because as we all know that the technology had improved a lot . So this kind of fake and hoax news are out of our time.So people want to realise the truth behind that kind of broadcasts.
ReplyDeleteSituation like these is not happening among youngster who know very well about the technology.But the people who are new to the technology or unaware of it, believe those fake things.If they get used to it,then the chance of occurrence of this type of situation can be reduced.
ReplyDelete- Pavithra S
When comparing this and present scenarios, the impact will definitely be less. Everything is at our fingertips nowadays. But it is impossible to eradicate the term ‘fake news’ completely.
ReplyDeleteThere is no point in blaming the technology. Even the people with great knowledge can intentionally make a fake news. It's on the other hand, the people who take these kinds of news must be aware.
- Shophine S
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ReplyDeleteIn the present scenario, due to the advancement in technology spreading such fraudulent news is a piece of cake. The rise of fraudulent news and the gradual destruction of public trust in mainstream journalism pose a looming crisis for freedom of expression. People spreading fake news in Malaysia could be sentenced to six years in jail under a new law. India is one of the countries which is planning laws for misinformation.
ReplyDelete- Durga R
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ReplyDeleteSuch things are rare to happen in real life.Because educated people will not believe easily.But still most people are believing such things which are telecasted by social media.So they must be educated about social media and fake news.-Dhivya P
ReplyDeleteAt a time when platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook find themselves most used for the dissemination of fake news, the probability of a situation like this happening would be quite high. But today's major media agencies are extremely well informed, wield the power to control the narrative and they take responsibility to bust this kind of fake information circulating amongst the people. On the other hand, people must be more cautious and wary when dealing with forwarded news and information, and should not blindly believe everything they hear/read.
ReplyDelete- Harsha
A situation like this may not happen today because everyone has updates their knowledge about what is happening around them through social media and news , because everyone needs a proof for everything
ReplyDelete-Priyanka
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ReplyDeleteNormally this type of situation are less likely to happen.The incident mentioned here took place on Halloween morning.It is a common practice in Western countries to play prank on others.Nowadays people are smart and wise enough to differentiate between fake and real news.
ReplyDeleteNeeraja.B
This kind of situation arise when people are unaware of emerging technologies.Such people must know how to differentiate fake and true things.We can avoid this by punishing the creator of fake news.so that there wont be any untrustworthy news sources.
ReplyDeleteThis may happen even today also because the mentality of common people is that they believe everything they come to know through media or such plays and spread the news without trying to know the truth. But we can say that the situations like this have been reduced now-a-days but not to it's full extent.
ReplyDelete-Gayathri V
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ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI think that there's still a possibility that these kind of fake news can travel and create a sudden fear and anxiety among people to a certain extent.This is due to the fact that people are so much obsessed with social media that they are ready to believe any information as long as it's available in the form of 'memes' ,thanks to those so-called 'meme-creators'.
ReplyDelete-Srikanth S V
It can possibly happen even today because people tend to believe everything online are true.And some people are also intensionally spreading fake news.So it is up to us to understand the truth behind
ReplyDelete-Manoj T
In this current advanced technology this may happen very rarely because most of the people aware of what is happening around them.They keep on upgrading themselves in a daily manner.So people immediately wont believe what they hear.They keep on searching through social media and then finalise whether it is truth or fake.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAs I write this, there are rumors spreading like fire around me about a famous leader's death. Most of the people have started to verify WhatsApp forwards and messages now but still they believe in reputed news channels and media. The problem arises when these so called 'reputed' media posts fake news. A fine example is when a Tamil news channel posted fake news regarding our former CM's death.
ReplyDeleteEven though people have evolved over time, they can easily be fooled by posting any 'believable' fake news. There is no possible solution that I can see to this problem. Stricter laws cannot be imposed on media as it violates our constitution and disrupts their freedom. Maybe the media should be responsible enough to protect their reputation and post verified news.
- Shreyas B
Definitely it will. Social media is like the newspaper, people blindly believe today. Many take advantage of this and make up things either to spoil a person's fame or for the fun in it. I think that we hardly search for the truth in a particular news. It is high time that we stop blindly believing in all things posted in social media and authorities should take some steps against this.
ReplyDelete-Dhilip Kumar R
Yes people still believe in fake news. For example if you rewind what has happened in Dec 2015, people went into chaos when rumours started to emerge regarding the lake broke out issue. They blindly believed in the social media messages that were forwarded by some fools. Unless we stop believing in the social messages, rumours will continue to spread like forest fire.
ReplyDelete- Karthikeyan K
I have read many of the articles above me and I agree with them to a certain extent. But some of the news which may be fake would just have been true news that just came from an unreliable source. Like the previous leaders death the news of her death came out around 2 days before the actual announcement so not all news are fake. It is just a matter of a reliable or unreliable source.
ReplyDeleteRavikiran Srinivas
DeleteToday's world is a media driven world. So if media decides to deceive the people, it can impart any information (real/fake) into the minds of the people. Considering this scenario of a theatrical presentation might not possibly happen but though media it is possible!
ReplyDelete- Saravanan R
Yes Social Media does influence the thoughts and make many believe in unwanted and fake news. The recent Lynching case in Northern Parts of the country is a prime example. The magnitude of the issue was such that Whatsapp was forced by the Government to curb many functionalities given to the public.
ReplyDelete-Aravinth P
Although Social Media does have advantages in today's world,there are massive drawbacks. There are theories that many countries have used social media to influence the election results and other decisions. Not only does social media help certain groups spread fake news but also instill their opinions in other users.
ReplyDelete-Ijaz Noufal
yes fake news still exists but we must rely on a reliable sources for getting authentic information.we must rely on google to validate the doubtful news
ReplyDelete-Aravind surya
Yes it happens irrespective of time and to me, with the advancement in the field of science has paved way for rumours to spread while before validating.
ReplyDelete- Arunasalam Elangovan
Yes, i agree with the above information. In today’s world there are many authentic information. But to be accurate there are more unreliable news then the reliable ones. Hence one must rely on authentic verified websites like BBC and the like to verify the information. This would forsee any uncircumstantial news and avoid widespread confusion.
ReplyDelete-kripa
Social media plays a major role in spreading fake news even in today's world. People who blindly forward news in social media can influence people to believe in them without verifying the facts behind them.
ReplyDeleteThe truth behind the news must be verified before trying to spread them across a major platform.
- Chandrakanth RM
Yes. I agree with the above posts. In today's modern world the news will spread like fire or sometimes even faster. Hence we must rely on authentic news source data like CNN and NDTV and many like this.Hence we should be aware of reliability and authentication.
ReplyDelete-Goutham
This kind of news will be taken seriously by the masses who are still immature enough to believe each and every one of these kind of stupid rumours.But nowadays most of the people are aware of such nonsense and are not ready to believe any of these.So,we are not in a position to completely stop these things,but we are moving towards it.
ReplyDelete-Ranjith O J
I hope you are right Ranjith.
DeleteActually,Situations like this are not likely to happen today,and very rare too as there are many advancements in the technology over recent decades like facebook,twitter,etc.. Mankind today are smart enough to be able to differentiate between fake and reality with the help of technology.and also with their knowledge in it. Even if something like this happend some of them won't believe in it..-Preethi
ReplyDeleteAm not so sure Preethi. Real evidence actually points to the opposite, that technology actually makes it easier to spread rumours.
DeleteMany similar instances have occurred in today's world. Along with the development of technology, the world has also witnessed new ways of exploiting gullible people.
ReplyDeleteWe need to be careful in interpreting information that social media provides us.
-Vijay Kumar
I agree Vijaykumar. We should be really careful in interpreting information.
DeletePeople are not stupid enough to instantly believe everything they hear.Nowadays ,technology has developed so much that people have so many number of sources before they actually confirm what they have just heard.
ReplyDelete--Vignesh M
But those who spread fake news also have access to such technology. And they use it in so many creative ways so much so that fake news spreads faster. I think I mentioned earlier also that MIT researchers did a systematic study over a 10 year period of this phenomenon and found that fake news actually spreads much faster than verified news.
DeleteThis is happening in social media nowadays. A IIIT-D professor is working on this problem and he's building a solution that can calculate the credibility of a news shared in social media.
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/ponguru/status/1023604182362648581?s=19
--Chandramouli V
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DeleteThat's a valuable piece of information, Chandramouli. Thank you for sharing.
DeleteWith the advacements of today's technology, anything I mean everything is possible. I could possibly hack into your profile, spread some fake news so that you can take the blame. But I think, this doesn't happen very often. The active users of social media have the mentality to be the first in conveying an information. In a hurry, they neglect to verify the trueness of the information. I don't blame everyone here. Among these people,they are still many who verify the info and spread them so that others can be benefited. I don't know whether we could stop this , but it is always better to verify the info before spreading it.
ReplyDeleteTrue. (Please introduce yourself when you post your comment). The responsibility of verifying lies with us.
Delete-ROHIT R
DeleteToday, people are smart enough to differentiate between fake and real news.Even though , they can be easily fooled by posting any believable fake news.we can't prevent it completely, everything is on the perceptions.-savitha devi
ReplyDeleteDear Savitha. If people today are so smart then why do we hear of so many cases of lynching based on fake news?
DeleteInstances such as these can happen any day because even though technologies have evolved, they are not hundred percent reliable . And so are the people. They might intentionally or unintentionally spread news that have little or no credibility in them. So it is always upto the readers. They should analyse the news rationally and verify its authenticity before believing in it or reacting to it.
ReplyDeleteSocial medias are proned to fake news and most of the masses are very well aware of it hence this situation is not really possible in today's world. Also its really important for the readers to check the reliability of the news before they interpret it. On the side with the growing technology there is also a threat of false identity as reliability concern about the who the individual or publisher is...
ReplyDelete-Mujahid
In today's world spread of fake news is a dirt in this interesting fact world. Without every individual have the response of not spreading the fake news and have aware of not to believe anything easily without analysing it, the spreading of fake news keep increasing.Even a small problem of a country can only be solved if and only if every citizens consider it as their responsibility to solve the problem for their country.In our case,fake news is a not a small problem.So every individual should contribute to completely eradicate it.
ReplyDelete