War of the Worlds to Social Media

Seventy-five years after the infamous broadcast, does <I>War of the Worlds still matter? This book answers with a resounding <I>yes Contributors revisit the broadcast event in order to reconsider its place as a milestone in media history, and to explore its role as a formative event for understanding citizens' media use in times of crisis. Uniquely focused on the continuities between radio's -new media moment and our contemporary era of social media, the collection takes <I>War of the Worlds as a starting point for investigating key issues in twenty-first-century communication, including: the problem of misrepresentation in mediated communication; the importance of social context for interpreting communication; and the dynamic role of listeners, viewers and users in talking back to media producers and institutions. By examining the -crisis- moment of the original broadcast in its international, academic, technological, industrial, and historical context, as well as the role of contemporary new media in ongoing -crisis events, this volume demonstrates the broad, historical link between new media and crisis over the course of a century."