mass-communication-theory

THE RISE OF LIMITED-EFFECTS
THEORY
CHAPTER 6
Two wars—one imaginary, one real—helped move mass communication theory
away from notions of powerful and subversive mass media to a more moderate and
benign view. What was to become the discipline’s long adherence to limited-effects
thinking began on a peaceful evening in late October, 1938. On that night, many
Americans were listening to a ballroom dance music program on the CBS radio
network when the show was interrupted by a series of news bulletins. Early announcements
told of strange astronomical observations and sightings of lights in
the sky. The reports grew steadily more ominous. An alien spaceship had landed
and was attacking the military forces that surrounded it. Transmissions from the
scene ended suddenly, followed by an appeal from the Secretary of the Interior
for calm in the face of the alien threat. In cities across the nation, Americans
reacted with alarm.
In that year, the medium of radio was still new, but it had become enormously
popular. Expansive national networks had been established only a few years earlier.
Listeners were starting to rely on the new medium for news, which was free
and easily accessible and provided compelling on-the-spot reports of fast-breaking
situations. In a very troubled era, with many unusual and threatening events, such
as impending war in Europe, people listened to radio for the latest reports of
threatening news. Orson Welles, a young radio program producer, conceived a
radio theater program in which simulated news bulletins would be used to play a
Halloween joke on the entire nation. Borrowing freely from a novel by H. G. Wells
entitled War of the Worlds, Welles and scriptwriter Howard Koch created a radio
drama in which listeners heard a series of compelling eyewitness reports of an alien
invasion. Afraid that the program might be too dull, Koch embellished the script with
allusions and authentic detail (Lowery and DeFleur, 1995).
The last half of the program recounted the aftermath of the invasion. News bulletins
gave way to a monologue from the sole human survivor, telling of the aliens’
ultimate defeat by earthly bacteria. Because this portion of the program was clearly
fantasy, Welles saw no need to provide announcements of the program’s fictitious
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