Question

In Orson Welles's radio production of "The War of the Worlds," actors portrayed journalists who are surprised during on-air reports by major disasters and events. Why was this considered effective?
a. Listeners at the time believed in aliens and believed the show was real.
b. Orson Welles was reading directly from a famous novel that people liked.
c. The sound quality was far better than normal news radio productions.
d. These acted reports resembled real radio news reports of disasters.
I think its d, not sure....

Answer 1

@Spectrum

Answer 2

(A) could be true, but I think you're right with (D) in saying that the reports resembled real ones.

That added to the idea that the radio show could have actually been real. The listeners didn't all necessarily believe in aliens, but the show seemed so real that they began believing it anyway especially when that was all it started out with. The actors doing their job as journalists lent even more credence to the idea that what they were hearing was the truth. So in a sense, without (D), (A) would have a harder time being true.

(B) isn't true because Welles didn't read directly from the book. The actual show started off as a series of news reports on the actual attack surprising many who expected a story instead (they were getting one, though a lot of listeners didn't realize it). And (C) just doesn't make sense. The quality of the sound didn't play into why the show frightened so many people in as much as how it was done. It really was thinking outside of the box for a radio show at the time, especially during Halloween.