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The War of the Worlds Broadcast

audiovisual digital radio audio radio audio major Lifetime Path planned

Creators

  • Orson Welles, director and performer
  • Mercury Theatre on the Air, radio company

Canon Rationale

A major radio-drama and media-history broadcast, included as a bounded listenable work for adaptation, simulated-news form, broadcast culture, and media-effects reception debates.

Path

Lifetime path, phase 1, rank 58.

Evidence

  • institutional list: Library of Congress National Recording Registry, 2002 induction year, 'War of the Worlds'.
  • handbook: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 'War of the Worlds: radio drama by Welles [1938]'.

Audit Flags

epistemic status required, version dependency

Completion unit: listen to the complete 1938 broadcast or a verified archival recording. Treat claims about mass panic as historically contested.

Reading Lists