Blog Post #2: The Hitch-Hiker
After listening to "The Hitch-Hiker," what are your thoughts on radio as a storytelling format? Did you find the story captivating? If so, what multimedia elements contributed to that? What do you think are shortcomings of this format?
In the decades in which the radio sat in the station of the home occupied now by the television, and less and less often today is the television there, audio-only storytelling operated as the newest means of storytelling for mass audiences. The newness and relevance of the format encouraged experimentation with its use as a storytelling medium. Radio plays, then, became a long form means of audio storytelling that could be broadcast and listened to with relative ease.
I feel that in its golden age, from today’s perspective, radio as a storytelling format could be seen as being both undervalued and overemphasized. While Orson Welles’ The Hitch-Hiker is a typological example of Welles’ work – realistic fiction horror with mildly supernatural themes – and undoubtedly a well crafted piece of storytelling for its medium, Guralnick’s observations of radio plays applies directly: it was not seen as equivalently meritorious as a stage production for live theater. From that observation, we can look at radio plays as being undervalued.
But when looking at Welles’ most famous radio play, War of the Worlds, the perspective of the medium as overemphasized can also be read. While War of the Worlds is also an excellent piece of fiction, it caused “hysteria,” which was evidently fanaticized in itself, bending the historical remembrance of War of the Worlds to be of a much more crazed and impactful broadcast than it truly was.
Boston Globe - Oct 31, 1938
It is well reported that the hysteria caused by War of the Worlds was fanaticized.
The Hitch-Hiker, for its merits, is an intriguing radio work that plays with suspense to evoke responses. Welles’ does not appear to utilize many modern horror tropes, as many are relegated to visual mediums, such as jump scares, gore, and visual symbolism. The production’s use of multiple character voices, distance from the microphone to allude to physical distance, and foley effects all provide fodder for the listener to stay engaged. Even the narrator’s first-person approach makes the listener feel that the story is being told directly to them.
Radio storytelling, specifically radio plays such as Welles’ works, are a valid method of presenting a story. But in the face of modern media production and presentation, radio is seen as a single-dimension medium with limited flexibility, and is therefore losing favor. We as consumers of media are much more accustomed to multiple forms of stimuli at one time, even so far as multiple screens at once (of which I am perennially guilty).
And yet I believe that certain genres of podcasts can be considered the heirs to the radio play dynasty, presenting stories in an audio-only format, but with the aid of modern technology and the ability for listeners to take in the story on their own time, not relegated to a broadcast schedule. A favorite of mine that may qualify here is Welcome to Nightvale.
