The War of the Worlds Mass Panic
On October 30th, 1938, a young actor by the name of Orson Welles, in collaboration with a number of other radio actors, presented a dramatization of H.G. Wells’ famous novel, War of the Worlds. According to legend, many people, believing that the show was a genuine news broadcast, began to panic. As the story of the mass panic grew, it developed into a much larger and darker narrative. What is the nature of mass hysteria? What can trigger our sense of self-preservation so deeply that we turn on each other? How does mass media and the way we receive information play into what we fear the most?