Engineered panics: We wouldn't fall for them, would we?

In October 1938, mass panic broke out on the streets of America after people listening to an Orson Welles radio play adaptation of H.G. Wells's War of the Worlds believed that the U.S. was under attack from invading Martians.

It is easy, today, to hear of such a historic reaction and chuckle.

However, the exact same thing has just happened again.

Over the weekend, mass panic broke out in Georgia as a broadcaster presented a 'spoof' programme which suggested Russian forces were invading. See the reports in the Telegraph, the Guardian, and the Independent.

It would be very easy for us - and very complacent of us - to sit here in Britain and judge such events from a position of misplaced superiority.

One might think the people of Georgia aren't as educated as us, that we in Britain could never fall foul of such spoofs and dramas presented as reality.

Yet the reality is that there is no reason for believing or thinking that the people of Georgia are any more or less educated than we are. Nor is there any reason to believe that we have any kind of difference in how we, as fellow human beings, respond to media messages.

Especially when we factor in recent history.

How many of our Members of Parliament fell for the claim that Saddam could launch (non-existent) weapons of mass destruction against us in forty-five minutes? Well, either they believed that claim, else knew they were voting for a lie. They took us into war on that basis, after all.

How many members of the public here in Britain panicked over news stories that swine flu would lead to mass graves, with bodies being piled ten deep as we all succumbed to a global pandemic that would claim hundreds of thousands of lives in Britain alone?

And, while we're at it, how many people fall for the Al Gore / IPCC claims about Armageddon caused by man made global warming climate change CO2 pollution - despite not a single day going by when yet another section of the IPCC's dodgy dossier is shown to be lacking in scientific credibility?

As technology develops and advances and blockbuster movies with fantastic special effects become part of our everyday lives, it is possibly difficult to conceive of a situation where we might believe a radio play about invaders from Mars or that it would cause mass panic.

It is also hard to conceive of a major British broadcaster playing a hoax on the public... even though Ghostwatch was broadcast on the BBC in 1992 and had many people believing that the events depicted in it were real.

It is certainly very difficult to conceive that any national broadcaster would attempt to 'spoof' us into believing that aggressive invasion by hostile nations could ever take place on our shores... isn't it?

And if they did, would we fall for it?

No..? Are you sure about that..?

The evidence is that our perceptions of reality are easily manipulated by the power of the media.

The Georgia case from the weekend shows that - and raises questions about what the 'spoof' was intended to achieve.

Perhaps before we start looking to the skies for incoming craft from Mars, we should start exercising discernment of what is presented to us as being truth.

Gandhi is famously quoted as saying: "Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth".

That irrevocable and unchallengeable piece of philosophy will not be sufficient to prevent everyone else falling for a falsehood if it is transmitted into people's homes through the authoritative voice of a trusted broadcaster.