In honour of Halloween- Let's take a walk back to 1938 and recall the radio broadcast of Orson Welles'... "War of the Worlds"A broadcast that stands out in history as possibly the first large scale, thanks to the wide spread availability of radio, perception managing/ psychological experiment. Conducted on the unwitting masses designed specifically to understand how fear could be induced, effectively.Image and some info borrowed from here
Radio is an altogether novel medium of communication, preeminent as a means of social control, and epochal in its influence upon the mental horizons of men. – Hadley Cantril, 19355
Global Research-Early “Psychological Warfare” Research and the Rockefeller Foundation
"Aware of the Dartmouth connection, Marshall encouraged the enterprising Cantril to apply to the Foundation for support. Cantril’s request resulted in a $67,000 grant for a two-year charter of the “Princeton Radio Project” (PRP) at Princeton University. There Cantril proceeded to develop studies assessing radio’s effects on audiences. In 1938 Cantril also became a founding editor of the Rockefeller Foundation-funded Public Opinion Quarterly, an organ closely associated with US government’s psychological warfare endeavors following World War Two.
When the Princeton venture commenced another trained psychologist close to Rockefeller, CBS Director of Research Frank Stanton, was named PRP lead researcher but took a secondary role of Associate Director due to his position at the broadcast network. At this time Austrian émigré social scientist Paul Lazarsfeld was recruited to join Cantril. Thus Cantril, Stanton, and Lazarsfeld were closely affiliated and ideally positioned to embark on a major study involving public opinion and persuasion.
The opportunity for such an analysis presented itself when CBS broadcast Orson Welles’ rendering of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds on on October 30, 1938. Lazarsfeld saw the event as especially noteworthy and immediately asked Stanton for CBS funds to investigate reaction to what at the time was the largest immediate act of mass persuasion in human history. Over the next several months interviews with War of the Worlds listeners were collected, provided to Stanton at CBS, and subsequently analyzed in Cantril’s 1940 study, The Invasion From Mars: A Study in the Psychology of Panic." PDF-
Planned and studied to understand the full affects on the audience...So, information gleaned could be honed, expanded and wielded, like any other weapon against it's unwitting victimsJan @ Gnostic Media did an encore presentation of his 2015 show "Prototype of Panic"I listened to it again. And decided Halloween 2016 was a fitting time to revisit this radio programming and the truth of it's broadcast Closing this post with an Edward Bernay's quote that is always in the sidebar here as a reminder to myself, hopefully others, that is behooves us all to question, always. Edward Bernays: Perception Management it is a Reality
"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society"
"Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. . . . In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons . . . who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind."