The Invasion From Mars Analysis

Cantril. In “The Invasion from Mars,” Cantril examines the panic in response to the War of the Worlds broadcast, demonstrating the multifaceted nature of media and connecting much of our prior readings using an interesting real-world situation. Cantril demonstrates how all of these factors might work together, revealing the potency of media influence, as seen by the panic response to the broadcast, not only due to particular elements about media itself, but also attributing the drastic disparity in interpretation of and response to the broadcast to differences in personality and background, as well as context of media experience, The surprising outbreak of panic by some to the War of the Worlds displays that while media can have a powerful effect, it may be somewhat passive in it’s influence.
Some concluded it was not a news report using internal evidence while listening, for example by disregarding it as reality due to prior knowledge, either recognizing the voices as actors or similarities in the story to other fictions, or in the extreme contrast between what they were hearing and what the knew as possible. Such incongruence would likely cause cognitive dissonance, and thus was not accepted. Others who questioned the broadcast looked for evidence through outside sources, like looking out their window or checking other stations. While the external evidence proved the broadcast as fiction to some, for others it only verified interpretation which they already had a fixed standard of judgment, and they perceived it as confirming their beliefs about the broadcast being real (confirmation bias). Finally, some just accepted it as true without seeking further evidence. Of course through being educated one has more information and a readiness to examine interpretations before accepting them. Thus educated individuals were more likely to realize the radio program as fiction as