Resumen de Medium Theory; or, “The War of the Worlds” at Regular Intervals
This article rethinks media and mediation in light of medium theory. It does so through the analysis of the alarming potential brought by the reenactment of Orson Welles’s “The War of the Worlds” radio broadcast in Portugal in 1958. Locally branded as “A Invasão dos Marcianos” (“The Invasion of the Martians”), the article associates the alarming nature of the broadcast with the structure of fear of an attack from communist Russia in the context of Cold War paranoia under the right-wing regime of Salazar as well as in light of the impending revelation of the third secret of Fátima. Conceiving medium theory as a methodology with which to see through into the elements that constitute the medium as such, this article proposes to reconceptualize media as a distinctive space-time zone, a rhythmic middle, through which to call up associated temporalities of governance in Portugal (and elsewhere) over the course of the twentieth century.
