Of course, for months and months after 9/11 you really heard about little else on the news, and it was understood that everyone was in a dizzy panic over terrorism. In fact, I've never met anybody worried about terrorism, and even directly after 9/11, almost no one had much to say about it.
Summary of the article:<p>Premise - The media created a near universally-held belief that people went crazy over "The War of the Worlds". Conclusion - The media don't really affect us that much.<p>Here's another entertaining look at three different radio broadcasts of "The War of the Worlds" and its influence on "The Blair Witch Project":<p><a href="http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2008/03/07" rel="nofollow">http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2008/03/07</a>
Fantastic read. Thanks for sharing. My favorite paragraphs:<p>"That is the ultimate irony behind "The War of the Worlds." The discovery that the media are not all-powerful, that they cannot dominate our political consciousness or even our consumer behavior as much as we suppose, was an important one. It may seem like a counterintuitive discovery (especially considering its provenance), but ask yourself this: If we really know how to control people through the media, then why isn't every advertising campaign a success? Why do advertisements sometimes backfire? If persuasive technique can be scientifically devised, then why do political campaigns pursue different strategies? Why does the candidate with the most media access sometimes lose?<p>The answer is that humans are not automatons. We might scare easily, we might, at different times and in different places, be susceptible to persuasion, but our behavior remains structured by a complex and dynamic series of interacting factors."