Media Induced Fear and Anxiety - Georgetown University: Web ...

CHAPTER 4: ENTERTAINMENT
Halloween night. 1938. Millions of Americans gathered around their radios to
relax and settle down to a night of entertainment provided by the Mercury Theater on
the Air program. Instead, millions erupted into a state of fear and panic. That evening,
Orson Welles broadcast a dramatized version of H.G. Wells’ fictitious novel War of the
Worlds. Despite four announcements throughout the broadcast reassuring listeners that
it was, in fact, a play, “thousands found themselves praying, crying and fleeing
frantically to escape death from the Martians.” 1 Countless people packed up their cars
and sped away from the New Jersey area where the invasion was reportedly taking
place, others hid in their basements, and one man, so terrified at the thought of being
captured by Martians, committed suicide. In a few hours time, everyone eventually
learned that the invasion was, in fact, a play, and all returned to normal. However, the
incident demonstrated how the media can directly influence people’s actions and arouse
millions to a state of fear and anxiety, even if for just a moment. The War of the Worlds
broadcast also offered a rare opportunity to understand how even purely fictitious,
openly entertainment media can influence people’s emotions.
Hadley Cantril, a social scientist who was commissioned to study the incident at
the time, noted “the situation created by the broadcast was one which shows us how the
common man reacts in a time of stress and strain. It gives us insight into his intelligence,
his anxieties and his needs, which we could never get by tests or strictly experimental
studies.” 2 The event also highlights how the social environment of the time plays a
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