Jerome Bruner uses War of the Worlds as an example of narrative seduction in which listeners are seduced into accepting only one interpretation of the story.
Actually I think a minority of listeners thought the story was genuine. What kind of research was conducted to determine how many interpretations were accepted? How do we measure this?
It does not make sense to say that some people had no other interpretive choice because the story was so well crafted. Bruner claims that interpretation can be forced on us by ambiguity, illusion, or banalization. Just because a story is banal does not mean we had to be lazy in interpretation. It is the listener's choice as to whether or not they wish to remain "hermeneutically alert" or not.
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