FICTION OR FACT
On October 30, 1938, many of those who were listening to the radio program “The War of the Worlds” directed by Orson Welles panicked, because they believed that Martians were really attacking the earth. The radio program was a live coverage from Grover’s Mill, New Jersey, the spot where the beam from a cylinder-shaped spaceship killed some of the onlookers. The New Jersey state declared martial law and attacked the cylinder.
The drama was a fiction, but the broadcasting was so real that as many as 1.7 million people believed that the reporter was actually describing the attack in real time. More than 2,000 emergency calls rang within two hours in New Jersey police department; some went out of their houses to run away into the mountains from the invaders from the planet Mars; and others said they saw strange flashes of lightning and smoke and even the aliens. The whole community went wild and panicked.
About ten years later, in 1949, a Spanish language version of "The War of the Worlds" was broadcast in Ecuador. After the program was finished, the listeners knew that it was a fiction. They became so angry with the radio station that they broke the windows with rocks and set it on fire. Six workers for the station were killed.
Seeing is believing
Believing is seeing
Desdemona’s handkerchief
The power of the media and technology is something we have to be more conscious of and be concerned about. Too many of us take them for granted, as something genuinely positive. I certainly don't.
ReplyDelete南山大学附属小学校の校歌がアップされました。http://www.nanzan-p.ed.jp/seikatsu/kouka.html
では、お元気で新年をお迎えください。
Charlie,
ReplyDelete校歌読みました。すばらしい。
特に
開いてみよう こころのとびら
のぞいてみよう 未来のとびら
くぐってみよう 世界のとびら
が気に入りました
風邪は治りましたか 良い年を迎えてください。
松岡
ありがとうございます。風邪はよくなりました。1年か2年に1度ほど、仕事のキリがついたときに風邪を引いてしまうようです。いけません。
ReplyDelete校歌についてのコメントありがとうございます。これから何十年も歌われ続けると思うと、身が引き締まる思いです。
年が明けたら是非会いましょう。
Have a wonderful New Year!