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Fact ~ Fiction: How Media Flatters Truth

COMS 381 Digital Essay by Novak L. (part V)

Our use of media has allowed globalization to flourish. It was made our societies interconnected and flowing with data that is constantly updated. As such, our lifestyles are dictated by our language, often glossed by media which becomes our truth. Whoever controls the microphone, controls mankind, as Orson Welles did for a brief period. His flirtation with Wells’ adaption for radio created high panic and hysteria that was built off of underlying paranoia built on by various media outlets. But as our failure to place reality and fiction into their proper places, so do our successes grow when we venture through new mediums and craft new and different avenues to sustain our thirst for knowledge.

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Fact ~ Fiction: How Media Flatters Truth

Coms 381 Digital Essay by Novak L. (part IV)

Theme and plot are akin to yin and yang in a narrative. The “what” vs the “how” will always be a meaningless argument over which is more important, but it is crucial to converge the two. To grasp an insightful story with a coherent plot is the best option out of choosing between the two. The reason for such hysteria and panic during Welles’ broadcast was that the public failed to correlate what was real and what was false. Additionally, they failed to correlate what underlay in Welles’ interpretation and took his words as gospel. Literally, but not figuratively. It was discovered that less than one third of frightened listeners understood the invaders to be aliens; most thought that they were listening to reports of a German invasion or of a natural catastrophe. [vii] "People were on edge. Radio had kept the American public alert to the ominous happenings throughout the world. The Munich Crisis was at its height... the rumblings that seemed inevitably leading to a world war." [viii] The theatrics of Welles’ interpretation blended theme and plot so well that it rivaled the audience’s fears. The audience were so ingrained in their real-life paranoia they were willing to accumulate a fictional paranoia on top of it. However, they also failed to correlate the two since the former was the root cause for the mess. They failed to see how perpetuating a myth leads them into wrong directions. Public suspense generated before the Munich Pact. “Papers seized the opportunity presented by Welles’ program to discredit radio as a source of news. The newspaper industry sensationalized the panic to prove to advertisers, and regulators, that radio management was irresponsible and not to be trusted." [ix] This demonstrates the dangers of perpetuating myths as reality given the power of media.

                                                              [x]

[vii] Schwartz, A. Brad (2015). Broadcast Hysteria: Orson Welles's War of the Worlds and the Art of Fake News (1st ed.). New York: Hill and Wang

[viii] Brady, Frank, Citizen Welles: A Biography of Orson Welles. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1989

[ix] Pooley, Jefferson; Socolow, Michael (October 28, 2013). "The Myth of the War of the Worlds Panic". Slate. Retrieved November 1, 2013.

[x] Les Callan of The Toronto Star (February 1939)

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Fact ~ Fiction: How Media Flatters Truth

Coms 381 Digital Essay by Novak L. (part III)

Wells used real cities in Europe, and to make the play more acceptable to American listeners, Welles used real cities in America. This made the physical configuration reinvigorate the tension with audiences and sell the illusion of a real alien invasion [v].  “The ability to experience many distant events at the same time, made possible by the wireless and dramatized of the sinking of the Titanic, was part of a major change in the experience of the present.” (Kern, 67-8) As the saying goes that, a picture is worth a thousand words, the same goes for our visual (even auditory) perception. There is a vast array of detail caught within said perception and much is expressed in unison. The introduction of radio introduced a new form of simultaneity that broke the status quo of gathering information. There was wide speculation that the Titanic was unsinkable, but once reality broke that thread, it was perplexing to believe that narrative in the first place. Moviegoers soon adapted to the “jerky” visual response and learned to “sustain the continuity between lapsed sequences…and take the audience from one spot to the other instantly.” (Kern, 71) For artists in love with machines, it was a match made in Heaven, so long as the artist was the hand and not the weapon. As such a medium was publicly and not privately addressed, frivolous activity arose in those who wielded it, and many did. 

                                                           [vi]

[v] CriticalPast. October 31, 1938. Retrieved April 24, 2020

[vi] Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis

Bibliography - The Culture of Time and Space 1880-1918 by Stephen Kern

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Fact ~ Fiction: How Media Flatters Truth

COMS 381 Digital Essay by Novak L. (part II)

Sustaining a thought is the principle for an oral culture. “To solve effectively the problem of retaining and retrieving carefully articulated thought, you have to do your thinking in mnemonic patterns, shaped for ready oral recurrence. Your thought must come into being in heavily rhythmic, balanced patterns…” (Ong, 34) Steadily bringing thought into your mind is our essence as a thinking species and culture. The reason for humanity’s intellect and organization is that we ourselves are very organized, globalized, and tight-knit. Just about nothing gets past us between each other because we share our data very frequently and intimately. “In an oral culture, to think through something in non formulaic, non-patterned, non-mnemonic terms, even if it were possible, would be a waste of time, for such thought, once worked through, could never be recovered with any effectiveness...” (Ong, 35) Therefore, one would expect such hysteria from a dramatized radio broadcast articulating the novel vigorously. Like “The Great Train Robbery” (Porter, 1905, USA) listeners weren’t adept to the technical and theatrical display of Welles’ performance. Thus, the populace was unable to distinguish fact with fiction nor correlate the thematic underpinnings of their fear of technology and the unknown. As Welles answered to a reporter, he stated that the radio’s technique was, “not original with me. It was not even new. I anticipated nothing unusual.” [iii] When the reporter asked him whether he should have toned down the language of the drama, Welles replied, “No, you don't play murder in soft words.” [iv] The substance and style were mixed to a degree that broke through formulaic transgressions otherwise recognizable in any medium prior to radio. For a moment, fiction flirted with truth and bore the extraordinary.

                                                              [v]

[iii] Brady, Frank, Citizen Welles: A Biography of Orson Welles. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1989

[iv] CriticalPast. October 31, 1938. Retrieved April 24, 2020

[v] After "The War of the Worlds" broadcast, photographers lay in wait for Welles at the all-night rehearsal for Danton's Death at the Mercury Theatre (October 31, 1938)

Bibliography - Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2002)

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Fact ~ Fiction: How Media Flatters Truth

COMS 381 Digital Essay by Novak L. 

During the premiere for “The Great Train Robbery” (Porter, 1905, USA) the audience flocked for their lives out of the theater from the “incoming” train. They were frightened enough to believe that the train zooming into frame was plenty real to run them over. The technological prowess of the cinema was ground breaking for its age, but insufficient to stage genuine belief into the audience alone. As necessary as it may be, information articulates itself in order to garner appeal from the audience. That way it procures its completed state to show vitality. Such was the impact of the “War of the World’s” broadcast by Orson Welles in 1938. This broadcast enshrines the impact of the radio’s ability in persuasion and, specifically, I will argue how our modes of communication are entrenched in narrative and fiction. Additionally, I will argue for the reason how the story ideal outweighs the communication ideal due to its general appeal for the audience’s intuition. The implementation of the source material [ii] as well as the works of Walter Ong and Stephen Kern by Welles allotted to the mass panic infamously associated to the broadcast. Ong’s discussion of the spoken word as a call to action and Kern’s description of space-time in modern radio elevated the holistic appeal of media. Media equally flatters truth by stylizing it in various ways, such as hiding underlying themes in otherwise hyperbolic tones. Each mode is linked between hyperbole and sincerity.  

                                                              [i]

[i] Willbanks Smith and Thomas

[ii] “The War of the Worlds” (Wells, 1898, UK)