War Of The Worlds

In 1938 Orson Welles broadcast his unfathomably hit radio drama, 'War of the Worlds', perhaps one of the most pivotal sci fi radio dramas of the twentieth century.
The narrative of WotW presented itself in a very controversial way. Mimicking that of news broadcasting and also styles of evening entertainment shows, it perpetuated the false reality of the radio drama with such finesse that if you were to listen to it without knowing what you were listening to, you have presumed this was reality. A sad fact of truth for some towns in the bible belt of the US.
Welles had planned this radio drama with such precision to elude all ideas of the world outside of the piece, as that became the only thing you focus on. With the only form of immediate news-baring coming from radio, Welles engineered his drama with perfection to play on this; he even postponed breaking the verisimilitude by pausing for a break ten minutes later to aid his cause. This in turn helped cumulate the rising terror associated with this famous radio drama.

The radio drama itself is split into two parts, the first a vibrant and powerful piece of warped reality, with very little to prove otherwise, the second an obvious and lacking narrative that follows a characters journey into finding that the aliens have died from bacterial viruses. The second half appears both anti-climactic and highly lacking in comparison to the first, as the illusion is not only shattered but appears to have been entirely ignored.

Cultural Codes
Welles pays high attention to speech within his radio drama, right down to implementing false stuttering and faked false starts. This also includes attention to detail when covering regional accent and dialect, pitch and tension to alleviate empathic/synthetic stress, technical jargon from scientists and use of vocal bass to ensure the stereotype of authoritatian figures.
For example, the radio presenter adheres to this, his faint new york accent blanched over by American RP, this tentatively is played with a numbness and perpetual calmness to fear. His interviewed subject a simple New Yorker had a restricted vocabulary and slow pace of response.

Symbolic Codes
The Rhythm of this piece is key to the tension being built, in the beginning we have the illusion of an evening entertainment show broken into by "emergency broadcasts". These broadcasts break the tinny music (signature to live radio of that time), to allow a soft, monotonous, slow paced speech, only to return to the music that has been skipped forward somewhat to create the illusion of the pace moving faster than it actually was. Yet for the majority of the piece 'real time' is used to perpetuate the realism being created.

Technical Codes
This piece has been intricately woven with sound effects to maintain realism. The attention to detail is astounding, from the faint clock ticking in the background of the observatory to the interviewed New Yorker standing "accidentally" too far from the microphone. This not only aids in setting the scene and atmosphere but makes you feel like a fly on the wall to something that is "really going on".
Silence was more heavily used toward the end of this radio drama as a scene changer or time passer, yet it was also included in the first half to represent death, silence. Likewise with music, discounting the opening sequence of a variety show, it was mainly used in the second half to set the tone of the piece.