How Orson Welles Faked Public Knowledge in "War of the Worlds"

On Halloween 1938, Orson Welles' Mercury Theater on the Air performed a dramatized version of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds. Within 16 minutes of the broadcast, over one million Americans believed Martians had landed in New Jersey. Throngs were calling their local police and fire departments, volunteering for service in the war against the Martians, a man returned to his house to find his wife holding a glass of poison, claiming it was better to die this way than being eaten by the Martians, people in Boston reported being able to see the flames from the Martian heat ray on the horizon. The effect surprised Orson Welles and his fellow actors more than anyone. Below you can see his attempt at making sense of the situation and his apology for the consequences of his broadcast.

How was this possible? How could an otherwise educated and intelligent public become so utterly convinced by such a fantastic story that they let that conviction guide their actions and override their senses?

In “Rhetoric and Public Knowledge,” Lloyd Bitzer defines public knowledge as “a fund of truths, principles, and values which could only characterize a public” and that a public which has such knowledge “is made competent to accredit new truth and value and to authorize decision and action” (68). Essentially, public knowledge becomes a framework out of which we can judge new truths and values. A public also has a set process by which new knowledge is accepted, or “a power of authorization through which some truths and values are accredited” (68). This process, or method, is a kind of rhetoric. “Rhetoric generates truths and values previously unknown to the public” and it “serves as an instrument with which to test public truths and values and justify public means and ends” (68). It both generates and tests truths in a generally acceptable way.

The reason Orson Welles’ broadcast War of the Worlds was so effective in altering the “public knowledge” of its listeners was because it successfully made use of the rhetorical process by which normal truths were introduced and established in the public of that time to introduce and establish a fiction. Perhaps the most pervasive method in this process was the use of phony representatives or spokesmen.

In the rhetorical process to introduce and test public knowledge, Bitzer writes that spokesmen are like prophets (74). We could therefore say that Welles effectively manipulated public knowledge by using false prophets to proclaim a false truth. On one level, there was the medium of the radio itself. As a widely disseminated and highly regulated medium, the radio in 1938 possessed an authority as a receptacle and fountain of truth which few of this age can imagine (Cantril xii). This authority is transferred to the radio announcer, who, without possessing any other credentials, is instantly believable as the transmitter of facts. The credibility of the radio as a source of information is even mentioned in the play, where the radio relinquishes control to serve the army since "radio has a responsibility to serve the public interest in all situations" (Welles).

Next, there is a long list of representatives who speak for the most prominent institutions granted authority to validate truths. As Bitzer writes, "public speakers and audiences . . . stand in for publics" as when "an eminent scientist . . . speaks for science" (73). Professor Pierson becomes the representative of the voice of science in the play, confronting fantastic claims with skepticism (8, 10) and triangulating his observations with those of other scientists and empirical evidence (6, 10), until he is convinced and validates a new truth. In stating this new truth, he acts in his capacity "as a scientist" (Welles) proclaiming with the authorization derived from what we know as "the agreements of experts or of elite persons" (Bitzer 76).

When this truth is summarized by the announcer, he focuses on the process of its discovery and validation: "Incredible as it may seem, both observations of science and the evidence of our eyes lead to the inescapable assumption that those strange beings are the vanguard of an invading army from the planet Mars" (Welles). Other public acknowledgments follow from other institutions authorized to validate new truths for the public: the National Guard, military, and finally Secretary of Interior all support this new and terrible truth. This perception of reality is also validated by the masses of people reportedly fleeing from the aliens: "Highways to the north, south, and west are clogged with frantic human traffic" (Welles).

Now, what of all this "knowledge" is public knowledge as defined by Bitzer? If it were real, the Martian invasion would not have been public knowledge in this sense, but rather "private knowledge made general" since it would have existence independent of a public (84). Public knowledge has no existence or at least looks different outside of a public. The public shapes knowledge when, "Purely factual conditions experienced by the public come into relation with shared sentiments, principles, and values that characterize persons not as individuals but as members of the public: and the power of participation transforms those factual conditions into the public's personal facts" (85). Personal facts here means facts which have been colored by emotions and perceptions. In 1938, the factual condition of voices speaking over the radio was transformed into something meaningful when it mixed with the public perception of the radio as transmitter of truth and recognition of titles (which do not exist in the absence of a public) giving the voices authority to establish new truths. This mixture transformed the factual conditions (voices heard on the radio) into the personal fact of a public that said Martians were invading USA.

Bitzer writes, "the public is the ground and the authority of all of its personal facts, which count therefore as part of public knowledge" (85). The Martian Invasion in 1938 was an evanescent personal fact of the public. One could say that it was truly public knowledge, since it had absolutely no existence independent of a public. Though systems of public knowledge are faulty and can be tricked, as shown in this instance, we need such systems in order to know things together, which is the necessary foundation for any kind of communal action. Hopefully, such glitches in the system make it clear to us that even these systems have faults, helping us to be humble and vigilant in testing what we know as a society and how we come to know it. Just because the voice you hear on the radio self-identifies as an expert, it doesn't necessarily mean the he or she is anything more than one voice and one opinion among many.

Here is the full broadcast. Masterfully executed, even by today's standards

How Media Select and Deflect Reality

In Language as Symbolic Action Kenneth Burke writes, "“Men seek for vocabularies that are reflections of reality. To this end, they must develop vocabularies that are selections of reality. And any selection of reality must, in certain circumstances, function as a deflection of reality.” 


Common examples of this principle are the many words the Inuits have for snow, or the way language death also means the death of ideas and concepts which originated within that language system. I experienced it myself when a Chinese girl opened my eyes by saying, "Oh you white people, you all look the same." Because of my limited experiences before that time with Asian people, my version of reality would sooner have stated the opposite. I would justify that by saying that white people have more variation in hair color, eye color, etc. but she would probably tell me that white people do not have the same variation in eye-shape or skin tones. The important thing is that we realize that neither systems are a perfect selection of reality. It is not that I was right and she was wrong. Rather, the claim that "all ---- look alike" is true depending on the criteria we look for. Thus, our different systems are made up of selections of reality. These selections decide what is relevant or not, and in extreme cases may make us "color-blind" so we do not see distinctions unless they are important to our system of thought.

In the same way, it is important that we realize that what is presented as "the news" is not giving us all significant world events happening. Rather, it is a reflection of the selections they have made of a vast amount of events and stories. These selections simultaneously deflect events which may be of much greater importance.

For example, the single most covered event in the US the last couple of weeks was the trial of Casey Anthony, a mother accused of murdering her little girl.


At the same time the United Nations has warned that over 10 million people in Kenya and Somalia are in a state of emergency because of one of the greatest droughts since the 1950s (http://www.quietway.org/current-drought-emergency-in-kenya/).

Personally, I don't think there can be any question morally or logically which of these issues deserves the greater media attention. Yet the selections of media coverage are not determined by logic or morals. Media coverage is driven by ratings, and mostly they follow wherever the ratings go. Meanwhile over 10 million people in need are deflected and forgotten because of the drive of media sensationalism and reality TV. This is just one example of how the media outlets select and deflect reality.

However, new media has given us some new tools to direct media coverage. If you are frustrated with the way mass media is selecting out things you care about and think are relevant, try to start a conversation! If we can get enough buzz and discussion on Twitter, Facebook, and other online media about this drought it will catch the attention of the mainstream media. They will want to attract some of those hits too in order to get you as their audience. #Kenya, #drought11, #cleanwater, and #waterforKenya can become trending topic threads on Twitter. Like me you can follow @QuietWay on Twitter or join the Facebook page.

The Internet is not a static element. It is constantly being changed by the unending conversations going on, and the mainstream outlets follow where the conversation is going. By using the Internet actively we can help to shape it, just like you can lead a conversation at a party by getting involved. You can make a difference in the lives of millions. That is the reality I want.

Rhetorical Pressure and Moral Will

We are currently living in deficient democracies. For democratic rule depends on an informed public who have the ability to be heard in the public discussion.

In “Introduction to Rhetorical Theory” Hauser writes that public discussion forms public judgment, and the quality of this discussion “depends on the conditions under which it takes place.” (88) Hauser mentions some of the conditions necessary for a good public discourse: “right to participate”, “access to relevant information”, “access to relevant media of dissemination so that they [citizens] can share their point of view with others in the public”, and “right of free speech.” (90) Whenever any of these are lacking it undermines good public judgment and (by implication) poses a threat to democracy.

Except for freedom of speech, all the conditions mentioned above are controlled mainly by the media. Though a citizen may want to participate in the public discourse, he is not likely to be heard unless he is granted access to relevant media of dissemination, and the media organizations often have the privilege to decide which information is relevant for their audience and how that information is presented.

Mass media is arguably one of the strongest “social forces” of modern society. There is a real danger that such forces could deceive a people to identify themselves with principles, parties and social movements that they ultimately do not have joint interests with. As Burke remarks in “Linguistic Approach to Problems in Education”, “In practice, democratic states move toward a condition of partial tyranny to the extent that the channels of expression are not equally available to all factions in important public issues. Thus we see democracy being threatened by the rise of the enormous ‘policy-making’ mass media that exert great rhetorical pressure upon their readers without at the same time teaching them how to discount such devices; and nothing less than very thorough training in the discounting of rhetorical persuasiveness can make a citizenry truly free.” (285)

Burke claims that a citizenry which has not been "thoroughly trained in the discounting of rhetorical devices" is in some ways enslaved. Clearly such a citizen will not be able to achieve enough autonomy from social forces to render him capable of reacting back on those forces effectively. Such training would contribute to restore the balance upset by the rise of ‘policy-making’ mass media and make citizens able to detect and hopefully avoid manipulation.

A stable democracy needs citizens who are able to distance themselves from these influences, question them to see what they are doing, and make a conscious decision to act with or react against those influences with intelligence and power. I believe that in order to become such a people we need to be learned in the intelligence of persuasion: rhetoric and rhetorical criticism.

As Professor Gary Layne Hatch writes, "those who understand the power of language to shape and respond to significant moments in time can gain some power over their circumstances and expand their individual freedom and influence. They become agents [no pun intended] - those who act - rather than those who are acted upon." Rhetorical criticism is how we can pause and negate some of the "bullets of influence" that fly at us all the time, and by using rhetoric we can fight back against those influences that are harmful. 
I believe we need to raise more awareness and help people be more educated about persuasion and democratic participation. Otherwise we may as well let a handful of powerful people rule us, since that is in effect the same experience we have as non-participating citizens. Hatch comments, "For many people, life is motion rather than action. Things happen to them that seem beyond their control. They are caught up in the flow of time and seem to be victims of circumstance."

Democracy is a gift that should be a cherished and living part of our societies. As Senator Smith says in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington", "Liberty is too precious a thing to be buried in books."