If the "War of the Worlds" 1938 radio broadcast was broadcast today would it cause the panic and hysteria it did in 1938 ?

Well, far more dangerous misinformation is propagated every day on the internet.

But I realize your question is literal, so I would have to say no. We have Twitter now.

It’s possible. If I was driving and a broadcast was interrupted saying spacecraft were landing,
terrorists just lobbed the big one at us, or California was falling into the sea from a 12.0 earthquake I’d believe it in the moment. I don’t twitter or even carry a cell phone, I’m a hippie country girl that has lived on properties for years out here. I live in my own little lala land and I’m gullible.

Not quite a Pollyanna, but damn close. lol

Not if done on radio. But I see no reason that the same levels of hysteria couldn’t be spread by seeding Facebook and/or Twitter with such a story. You’d have to produce a few “eyewitness” YouTube videos to post from various locations, but that wouldn’t be too challenging.

It would have to be an elaborate TV production that would be repeated on all stations for at least a day and a half. And it would be a foolish thing to do. Yes, it could scare people and lead to panic, but the TV medium would lose all credibility. You could only run it on stations that produce comedy and let people learn quickly that it was in fun. And even then it would be stupid to do. We’re paranoid as it is about the news. Whom could we trust?

I would have to say no because the general public has been inundated with science fiction movies for a few decades now covering a wide variety of things like different types of aliens, different scenarios as far as good and evil in their motives, conspiracies regarding goverenment cover-up’s relating to extra-terrestrials and their spacecraft, etc.

I think an attempt to re-create the suggested broadcast would be mostly met with disbelief, boredom, and maybe a modicum of interest but not much more than that.

Like @Sunny2 mentioned above, it would have to be elaborate and stunningly convincing to fool most people.

Not with the internet and its real time information sharing.

Of course not, who’d believe some nerdy tits on Twitter/Facebook breaking the story first.
Global news networks with a pensive looking Obama glaring into the camera at a hastily arranged news conference would clearly be all over it like a rash.
Zero credibility, general public are way more clued up now.

With their characteristic due diligence, Fox News would pick up the story, pre-empt all scheduled programming with the emergency news flash, and quickly blame the alien invasion on Obama.

I would like to believe the answer is no. With Cable News, the Internet, and the fact people are less vulnerable to this kind of trickery (and more suspicious of news shows), it may catch a few saps, but not the broad spectrum that the original broadcast did.
That said, how many people fell for the “Blair Witch Project” internet hoax?
Way more than you would expect.

Both a sci-fi and Orson Welles fan, I’ve always been fascinated by his WOTW broadcast and still find it fresh and a bit unsettling (the moment when the onsite reporter’s mic goes dead is still scary to me.) If you’ve never heard it, do. Last Sunday I heard a lively discussion abut it on the Moth Radio Hour. One takeout was that regardless of whether Welles intended the broadcast to be simply a harmless prank, as he stated at the time, or a somewhat sadistic deception, which he claimed years later, his “Happening Now” radio technique set the format for all national and local news reporting today. I’m still looking for the link and will post when I find it.

We are not going to fall for that again. Martians don’t scare us anymore. Now if it was a Muslim submarine surfacing off Manhattan with a crew of bearded men that would be different.

Not if it was on the radio, because no one listens to the radio any more since it’s not worth listening to due to the homogenization that set in after the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Now…..if it were on TV, it might be a different story…...

Yaaaaay… I found “the link“http://www.wnyc.org/radio/#/ondemand/91622 to the conversation I referred to in my previous comment. It’s from Radio Lab, not The Moth. Worth a listen.

Yaaaaay… I found the link to the conversation about Welles’ broadcast I heard a few days ago. It’s from Radio Lab, not The Moth. Worth a listen.