If you are referring to "War of the worlds " the radio broadcast indicates it is a audio drama. He couldn't have intended for people to think it is real just because the audio drama is in the form of a news broadcast.
The broadcast began with the usual announcement: "The Columbia Broadcasting System presents Orson Welles and his Mercury Theatre Players in a dramatization of H.G. Wells' novel, 'The War of the Worlds.'"
Listeners heard a dance band playing languid Spanish numbers in the "Park-Astoria Hotel". The music was interrupted suddenly by a flash. It was announced that a professor in a university observatory in the Southwest had noticed a series of gas explosions on the planet Mars.
They may have covered themselves legally, but it’s highly likely they intended to fool people
I'm not sure how that quote is supposed to show it was a prank?
I think you are missing the nuance that radio was a young medium and the radio program was unrealistic and introduced as fiction, so it wouldn't have occurred to anyone what effect it would have on the audience.
The people who were panicking for the most part heard the part about it being a radio production of war of the world' but their brain didn't process those words. Nobody could have expected that.
The audience would have also been less media savvy than they would be today, so would react more naively than the producers might have expected to an early experimental example of a "found footage" program.
If you are referring to "War of the worlds " the radio broadcast indicates it is a audio drama. He couldn't have intended for people to think it is real just because the audio drama is in the form of a news broadcast.
The broadcast began with the usual announcement: "The Columbia Broadcasting System presents Orson Welles and his Mercury Theatre Players in a dramatization of H.G. Wells' novel, 'The War of the Worlds.'"
Listeners heard a dance band playing languid Spanish numbers in the "Park-Astoria Hotel". The music was interrupted suddenly by a flash. It was announced that a professor in a university observatory in the Southwest had noticed a series of gas explosions on the planet Mars.
They may have covered themselves legally, but it’s highly likely they intended to fool people
https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/war-worlds-broadca...
I'm not sure how that quote is supposed to show it was a prank?
I think you are missing the nuance that radio was a young medium and the radio program was unrealistic and introduced as fiction, so it wouldn't have occurred to anyone what effect it would have on the audience.
The people who were panicking for the most part heard the part about it being a radio production of war of the world' but their brain didn't process those words. Nobody could have expected that.
The audience would have also been less media savvy than they would be today, so would react more naively than the producers might have expected to an early experimental example of a "found footage" program.