Academics Henry Jenkins and Colin Maclay use their combined knowledge to dig deeper and ask more ambitious questions than most pop culture podcasts out there – not doing recaps or just remaining on the level of entertainment coverage. For them, popular culture offers resources for asking questions about who we are and where we are going, questions that can be political, legal, technological, economic, or social, but often cut across all of the above.
https://www.howdoyoulikeitsofar.org/
episode 24: War of the Worlds, hoaxes and conspiracies with Nick Cull
To continue our thread on rumours and conspiracy theories, this week Colin discussed the 80th anniversary of the The War of the Worlds broadcast on CBS radio with media historian Nick Cull. Orson Welles' infamous radio drama showed the power of news media to convince populations about a fake event, but it also highlighted the rumours surrounding the broadcast: not everyone thought it was aliens invading, but Nazis, the Japanese etc. Cull explains how rumours reflect the underliying social and political tensions of the moment, and tying to the current moment, describes how rumours have always worked the same way: to explain, engage, undermine and entertain.