The Hypodermic Needle Theory: As presented by “The Fake News Fallacy” and “War of the Worlds”
When researchers began in the 1930’s to study the effects of mass media, one of the earliest proposed theories was known as the Hypodermic Needle Theory. Put simply, this theory suggests that media can have direct and powerful effects on an audience.
Both the Radiolab podcast “War of the Worlds” and The New Yorker article “The Fake News Fallacy by Adrian Chen explore one of the most iconic demonstrations of the Hypodermic Needle Theory: The 1938 radio broadcast War of the Worlds. Through this podcast and article, we can get a better sense of what the Hypodermic Needle Theory really means.
War of the Worlds was a radio play, adapted from the original novel by H. G. Wells. The play was performed using realistic details that depicted aliens invading a county in New Jersey. The Broadcast went “viral” in today’s terms, and it was publicized afterwards that the event had caused mass hysteria.
The podcast “War of the Worlds” outlines the specific circumstances of the event:
What the podcast explains is that Orson Welles, the producer of the radio play, was able to effectively adapt the play in such a way that it mimicked a real news event. The audio above highlights that within the context of the situation, with Hitler coming to power and the frequent occurrence of Edward Murrow’s news bulletins, the play was very realistic. Though at the time it was intended to be for entertainment only, the play was structured in a way that strongly conveyed one message: aliens were invading Earth.
From “The Fake News Fallacy”, these were some of the reactions to the broadcast:
“Thirty men and women rushed into the West 123rd Street police station,” ready to evacuate, according to the Times. Two people suffered heart attacks from shock, the Washington Post reported. One caller from Pittsburgh claimed that he had barely prevented his wife from taking her own life by swallowing poison. The panic was the biggest story for weeks”
The Hypodermic Needle Theory fits into this because, at least according to general belief, people bought into this message. They were susceptible enough to the media that when a radio segment told them that aliens were invading; aliens were invading. It’s straightforward enough that it isn't difficult to see why the Hypodermic Needle Theory is discussed so often within the context of this event.
However, there is another side to this, because both Adrian Chen’s article and the “War of the Worlds” podcast explore how the broadcast might not have been exactly what it seemed.
According to “The Fake News Fallacy”:
“This early fake-news panic lives on in legend, but Schwartz [The author of a book about the topic] is the latest of a number of researchers to argue that it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. As Schwartz tells it, there was no mass hysteria, only small pockets of concern that quickly burned out… Schwartz argues that newspapers exaggerated the panic to better control the upstart of medium radio, which was becoming the dominant source of breaking news in the thirties…”
This is backed up by evidence in Radiolab’s podcast:
“The C.E Hooper ratings survey found 98 percent of the respondents were not listening to Orson Welles or “War of the Worlds.” They were listening to the Chase and Sanborn hour or their radios were off or they were listening to another program. Of the two percent that they found that were listening to “War of the Worlds,” not a single respondent thought it was a news broadcast.”
If the newspapers really did overplay the scale of the panic, then what we have is the Hypodermic Needle Theory playing out in a different sense. The aftermath of the 1938 broadcast brought with it large numbers of elaborate testimonies and concerned reporters, which means that even if the event itself did not cause mass hysteria, the press did an expert job of convincing the public that it did. Following the same pattern of the theory as we did above: people heard about this broadcast and all the panic it caused and believed it wholeheartedly, so much so that many people today are still under the impression that this event really caused mass hysteria. This idea can be further supported by looking at how the press presented the event, including during a press conference with Orson Welles after the fact:
“Do you think you might have taken advantage of the public?”
“Should there be a law against such enactments?”
These questions give strong implications to the public that the effects of this broadcast were widespread, and what happened should be looked at as a possible danger to society.
Whether or not there was mass hysteria, this interview along with reactions printed in newspapers told the public that there was, and that it was a big deal. This portrays the core of the Hypodermic Needle Theory, that the media can simply “inject” messages into an unsuspecting public, perfectly. Looking at things this way gives a different perspective because we realize that the broadcast not really causing mass hysteria — a fact that is often described as disproving the Hypodermic Needle Theory — could be looked at as an presentation of the theory in and of itself. We can dig even deeper into this by looking at what happened after.
At a time when we were just beginning to study media effects, the discovery of and belief in the Hypodermic Needle Theory was significant. Once people began to realize the effects that media could have (something emphasized by the occurrence of the War of the Worlds broadcast as well as the rise of Hitler), they were determined to get it under control.
“There was great concern about distracted and gullible listeners being susceptible to propagandists. A group of progressive journalists and thinkers known as “propaganda critics” set about educating radio listeners. The Institute for Propaganda Analysis, co-founded by the social psychologist Clyde R. Miller, with funding from the department-store magnate Edward Filene, was at the forefront of the movement. In newsletters, books, and lectures, the institute’s members urged listeners to attend to their own biases while analyzing broadcast voices for signs of manipulation.” (“The Fake News Fallacy”)
People truly believed in the Hypodermic Needle Theory. Fear led to extensive efforts to alter media in a way that would prevent citizens from being so susceptible to these kinds of messages. It stemmed from the belief that many people would be gullible towards the news, and simply accept anything as fact.
In “The Fake News Fallacy” Adrian Chen not only outlines the event and aftermath of the War of the Worlds broadcast, but also takes a look at the present day. The reality today is that society still believes that people are stupid enough to believe whatever they read. We see it everywhere, from the coining of the term “fake news” to subsequent efforts to fact-check all that is posted on the internet (“The Fake News Fallacy”). People think they need to identify when something is false because they fear that others will blindly accept it as true.
This is why it’s important to understand the Hypodermic Needle Theory within today’s context; The concept of the media being able to fool people influences how we think about and behave around media. Today we are still trying to do what many tried to do following World War II: Pay attention to ourselves and what we’re reading, and avoid being manipulated by messages that are being sent to us.
In 1938 a radio play told the public that aliens were invading and naturally everyone…didn’t buy it. However, by newspapers convincing people that everyone did, it sparked a fear about the power of the media that managed to influence how we behaved for the next 80 years, and how we still behave today. The Hypodermic Needle Theory is not a matter of true or false. What it does do, rather, is prompts us to ask ourselves just how susceptible we really are to the messages of the media.
Works Cited:
Chen, Adrian. “The Fake-News Fallacy.” Newyorker.com, The New Yorker, 28 Aug. 2017, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/09/04/the-fake-news-fallacy.
“War of the Worlds: Radiolab.” Wnycstudios.org, WNYC Studios, 30 Oct. 2018, www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/war-worlds.
