Decoding the Message: Verisimilar Textuality, Paratexts, and Reception Context.

This article examines "The Message," a 2015 audio drama science fiction podcast with a verisimilar narrative that led some listeners to interpret it as nonfiction. It argues the podcast's use of nonfiction genre conventions, web paratexts, and its reception context contributed to such misinterpretations. It situates "The Message" in context with "The War of the Worlds" and a contemporaneous audio text that similarly duped listeners, and explores listener discourses about the podcast on Reddit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]