Saturday, March 29, 2008

Today's lessons from the Martian invasion of New Jersey My "podcast" download folder held a pleasant surprise this morning... a production of WNYC's Radio Lab that may prove handy for a slow day or extra-credit assignment concerning media history, media ethics, propaganda or media effects on audience members. But it's also great fun as a contemporary creative radio performance -- presented by Radio Lab on stage with a live audience, and with help from a sound effects wizard borrowed from Prairie Home Companion. See this address for streaming or downloadable audio... and, if you're interested in some of today's most creative radio storytelling, subscribe to the podcast: http://blogs.wnyc.org/radiolab/2008/03/25/war-of-the-worlds/ In their performance, Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich start with the question "If I were alive in 1938, how would I have reacted to Orson Welles' War of the Worlds broadcast?" -- but they go far beyond it, with visits from guests including academic experts, the daughter of a man who almost died in a radio-hoax panic, and one of the creators of the Blair Witch Project film. A lot has been written about the panic the "invasion news" caused and archived recordings are widely available, but the Radio Lab crew brings home the story in very Radio ways. Among other things, they add archival audio of other things that were on the radio that night in 1938, setting what a media researcher might call the "cultural context," including the rise of the "special bulletin" interrupting radio news. They also dramatize two later broadcasts that were inspired by the original, gradually making their way back to the present. Like the H.G.Wells War of the Worlds novel, the Radio Lab broadcast has its own twist at the end, one audiences might not expect, but that should be a good "food for thought" point for media studies and journalism majors. (Warning: The discussion blog on the WNYC page is good reading, but could be a "spoiler.") Coincidence: Media historian Bill Kovarik and I were talking last week about a long-time theory of mine that the 1937 radio report on the crash of the Hindenberg directly influenced the actor who described the first attack of the Martian war machine in the "War of the Worlds" broadcast. (He actually did mimic the real-world disaster, according to the WNYC program.) Along with radio, maybe Abumrad and Krulwich do telepathy! 10:47:44 PM    comment []

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