War of the Worlds

How is the War of the Worlds example of 1938 a good example of audiences relating to a media product? What was the context of this event? 

In 1938 Orson Welles did a radio broadcast based off the novel War of the Worlds by H G Wells. Most of those who started listening did not hear the notice that it was a fictional story and believed that aliens really were invading the US. This caused national panic and Welles had to reassure everyone that it was just fictional and nothing was out of the ordinary. This is an example of; in Stuart Hall's reception theory; a media product that did not have a Preferred or Dominant reading and rather interpreted a fictional story to be reality. This means that audiences will not always take to the preferred reading. This also links to the "hypodermic syringe" that means that audiences are given information through media and their behaviour corresponds to the media consumed. In this case, the audience was told there was an alien invasion and they believed it and panicked.