2. •The concept of Mass Media
“producing, maintaining,
repairing, and transforming
reality” has been a running
theme throughout the
semester and MEDIA HOAXES
are a prime example.
MEDIA HOAXES
3. •A “MEDIA HOAX” is a falsehood
deliberately fabricated to
masquerade as the truth that is
communicated via mass media (THE
DISEASE)
•A media hoax is typically spread by
people who are not involved with the
creation of the hoax (THE CARRIERS)
What is a “MEDIA HOAX”?
4. •MOMO
• The “Momo Challenge” was a viral game shared on messaging
services like WhatsApp that was said to goad young children
into violence or even suicide. Images of the devilish bird-lady
supposedly pop up with creepy messages and commands that
are said to escalate to extreme violence and horror. Except that
there was no discernible evidence proving this is actually a
problem. Experts say there is no indication that children are
being driven to suicide since the story went viral. The Momo
challenge elevated into a global phenomenon, not because of
the stories shared by victims themselves but by the worried
adults trying to protect them.
• Panicked parents, social media, and local news reports
largely drove the hysteria
MEDIA HOAXES
5. MEDIA HOAXES
•Balloon Boy
• The "Balloon Boy" hoax occurred on October 15, 2009, when a homemade
helium-filled gas balloon shaped to resemble a silver flying saucer was
released into the atmosphere above Fort Collins, Colorado, by Richard and
Mayumi Heene. They then claimed that their six-year-old son Falcon was
trapped inside it. Authorities confirmed the balloon reached 7,000 feet
during its 90-minute flight. Suspicions of a hoax soon arose, particularly
after an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN that same evening. Asked why
he was hiding, Falcon said to his father, "You guys said that, um, we did this
for the show." As a result, the parents faced several felony charges and the
father was sentenced to 90 days in jail and 100 hours of community
service. And the mother was sentenced to 20 days in jail.
• For hours, the incident received extensive media coverage in many parts of
the world, with local TV helicopters broadcasting live video of the balloon
and rescue operation. "Balloon boy" became the No. 1 search on Google
within hours of the event and 34 of the top 40 searches on Google were
related to the incident.
6. •Lonelygirl15
• lonelygirl15 is a web series that ran from June 16, 2006, to
August 1, 2008. Initially pretending to be an authentic YouTube
video diary or vlog. Before the vlog was revealed as fake, the
title character dealt with mundane teenage problems such as
being grounded; lonelygirl15 posted video replies to, and
dropped the names of, popular YouTubers. To further the
initial illusion that Bree was a real girl, a MySpace page was
set up for her and she seemingly began corresponding with
many of her fans.
• Later the show moved to a bizarre narrative that portrayed her
dealings with secret occult practices within her family and
included the mysterious disappearance of her parents after
she refused to attend a "secret" ceremony prescribed by the
leaders of the family's cult.
MEDIA HOAXES
7. •CNN Porn
• In November 2016 a twitter account by the name of
@solikearose tweeted out a surprising image of CNN
broadcasting porn instead of Anthony Bourdain’s scheduled
show Parts Unknown. And then without really much
questioning, a bunch of news sites ran with it, claiming that
the network showed the footage for about 30 minutes. The
Independent wrote up a story from this person’s tweets, which
was then tweeted out by the Drudge Report.
• After that, it spread fast. Mashable, The New York Post, The
Daily Mail, Esquire, and Variety have all published a story, and
pretty much all of these articles are based on one or two
tweets from @solikerose. But it was all fake and Fact-checking
largely didn’t begin until AFTER the stories were published.
MEDIA HOAXES
9. • To be sure, all of these are “silly” and not
overly damaging or dangerous, but what
about the recent MEDIA HOXES involving:
• Q-ANON
• COVID-19 – the disease & the vaccine
• 2022 ELECTION LIES
•All three of these are obviously damaging
and dangerous examples of how media can
be used to spread misinformation, panic,
violence, and propaganda…
MEDIA HOAXES
11. •“Deepfakes” are fake videos or audio
recordings that use Artificial Intelligence-
technology to create media that looks
and sounds just like the real thing but
have NO basis in reality – for instance,
the Obama Video we just watched – he
said NONE of those things.
•“Shallow fakes” are when an existing
audio/video is altered in some way to
create a different meaning or context
EYE & EARS = REALITY?
12. •Tom Cruise joins TikTok?
•“Don’t worry” says the Deepfake
Cruise Videos Creator
•NY TIMES article on “digital
impersonations”
DEEPFAKES
13. •Deepfake Videos are CLEARLY trying to
“produce, maintain, repair, and
transform reality”
•As the technology progresses, this means
that WE CAN NO LONGER BELIEVE WHAT
WE SEE AND HEAR IN VIDEO/AUDIO –
our eyes and ears will be rendered even
less trustworthy than they already are…
EYE & EARS = REALITY?
14. •And as Virtual Reality/Hologram Technology
progresses, one can see how this means
eventually WE WILL NO LONGER BELIEVE
WHAT WE SEE AND HEAR IN REAL LIFE–
our eyes and ears will be rendered even less
trustworthy than they already are…not only on
the Internet and in Video/Audio recordings,
but also while we’re experiencing
“REALITY” itself!
EYE & EARS = REALITY?
15. •What do you think a world
where one cannot reliably
trust their own eyes and
ears for an accurate
representation of reality
will be like?
EYE & EARS = REALITY?
16. •Hoax Artist Joey Skaggs
• “The Art of the Prank”
MEDIA HOAXES AS WARNINGS
17. • But the most famous
and influential media
hoax of all time is the
1938 radio broadcast,
“THE WAR OF THE
WORLDS” with Orson
Welles as the
mastermind.
• Classic example of the
power of media to
manipulate the public
into believing anything.
MEDIA HOAXES
18. THE WAR OF THE WORLDS
• BACKSTORY
- Based on the 1898 book by
H.G. Wells
- Mercury Radio Theater
Company dramatized it on
CBS Radio 10/30/1938
- Directed and narrated by
Orson Welles who quickly
rocketed to fame after it
aired.
19. PUTTING IT IN CONTEXT
• Historical Context:
In 1938, the lead-up to WWII
was being broadcast from
Europe – listeners heard very
real reports of invasion just
weeks earlier
Mars was a popular topic of
speculation and fear –
remember, even a trip to
moon was decades away
20. PUTTING IT IN CONTEXT
• Media Context:
Radio was a new medium with
few stations/networks, 1938
was pre-television, no
Internet, relatively few
phones, people could not rely
on countless other media
channels for information as
we can now
The timing of the broadcast
was also crucial to its effect
21. PUTTING IT IN CONTEXT
• Psychological Context:
People were more likely to
believe what the media/radio
told them – they weren’t used
to being “Punk’d” or
deceived yet
Primed by war reports, people
were more apt to believe it
was now happening to them
22. ON THE AIR – 10/30/1938
• Actual 1938 Radio Broadcast
• Approach this from the
perspective of an actual listener in
1938 (subjectively).
• And approach this with the
perspective of a modern-day
media student (objectively).
•THEN ASK YOURSELF:
•WHAT WORKED?
•WHAT DIDN’T WORK?
23. WHAT WORKED?
•No commercials (unsponsored)
•Updated fiction presented as
nationwide LIVE radio with experts,
officials, and eyewitnesses (they
might be called “crisis actors “ today)
•NO extra “dramatic” music
•The sudden silences (repeated “trick”)
24. WHAT WORKED?
• The apparent “mistakes”: “Am I on?” and
“Speak louder, please.”
• Using a man who sounded like the president,
FDR (but was identified as the “Secretary of the
Interior”)
• TIMING: Welles knew when people would be
tuning in from the most popular radio show on
another station – right when the live report
from the attack was in full swing
25. WHAT WORKED?
•The repeated use of the “Breaking
News” motif – we listen more intently
when regular programming is
interrupted, don’t we? (The orchestras
were the regular programming)
•Encouraging the audience to lean in
and “listen please” – almost breaking
the fourth wall and pulling the
audience into the story
26. WHAT WORKED?
• Using the radio itself and the strengths of
audio as part of the story:
• First witness was “listening to the radio”
when he heard the falling objects
• Turning the radio over to the government
because “radio has a responsibility to
serve the public interest at all times”
• The sound of the lid opening
• The descriptive language engaging the
listeners’ imaginations
27. WHAT DIDN’T WORK?
• Ridiculous timeline
• Lack of coverage on other radio stations
• The cut-back to the studio after the first attack
• You had to tune in and tune out at just the right
moments for it to successfully freak you out
• The narrative jump ahead in time after the “attack”
28. THE AFTERMATH:
• MARTIAN MANIA: The
True Story Of The War
of the Worlds
• LOOKING BACK at The
War of the Worlds
29. THE AFTERMATH
• Newspapers reported
• panic ensued with people fleeing the area
• others thinking they could smell poison gas
• could see flashes of lightning in the distance
• Out of the six million who heard the CBS
broadcast; 1.7 million believed it to be true, and
1.2 million were 'genuinely frightened’”.
• Within a month, there were 12,500 newspaper
articles about the broadcast or its impact, while
Adolf Hitler cited the panic as "evidence of the
decadence and corrupt condition of democracy."
30. THE AFTERMATH
• Later studies suggested this "panic" was less
widespread than newspapers suggested. During this
period, many newspapers were concerned that radio, a
new medium, would make them defunct. In addition,
this was a time of yellow journalism, where
newspapers were not held to the same standards as
today (as low as they might be). As a result, journalists
took this opportunity to demonstrate the dangers of
broadcast news by embellishing the story, and the
panic that ensued, greatly. By doing so, they were
effectively supporting the idea that only the
newspaper could be trusted…
31. • Like Skaggs would say later, Orson Welles says
he was using his hoax to warn us…
• Michael Jackson Alive?
• “We wanted to show how easily users can be
manipulated on the Internet with hoax videos,”
RTL spokeswoman Heike Schultz told The
Associated Press. “Therefore, we created this
video of Michael Jackson being alive, even
though everybody knows by now that he is
dead — and the response was breathtaking.”
MEDIA HOAXES
32. CZECH TELEVISION EXAMPLE
• June 17, 2007
- Viewers of a National Weather Channel morning
broadcast featuring panoramic shots of mountains with
relaxing muzak saw this:
33. ZTOHOVEN STATEMENT
• Partial statement made by art group ZTOHOVEN:
“On the 17th of June 2007 this group attacked the
space of TV broadcasting. It distorted it,
questioned its truthfulness and its credibility. It
drew attention to the possibility of using images
of the world created by the media in place of the
existing, real world. Is everything we see daily on
our TV screens real? Is everything presented to us
by the media, newspapers, television, Internet
actually real? This is the concept our project
would like to introduce and remind of.”
34. THE WAR OF THE WORLDS
•But a WAR OF THE WORLDS
hoax itself could never
happen again, right? After
all, it’s been so publicized
and discussed…
35. …BUT WHY?
…why do you think people are prone to believing
media hoaxes? What’s going on psychologically
and culturally? (Because “people are stupid”
cannot be the entire reason)
36. OVERVIEW
-Context is crucial in understanding media
-“Fake” media manipulates and affects
society in very REAL ways
-A WOTW-like media events are
undoubtedly happening in small and big
ways all the time…
-…the difference being that people like
Skaggs, Welles, RTL, and Ztohoven
admitted their hoaxes…
37. OTHER VERSIONS
• Several films, TV Series,
other Radio
Productions, computer
games, comic books,
and even a musical
adaptation in the form
of a concept album.
