https://padlet.com/jamesonbrown21/vd32mcoganvaz6bv Exploring the uses of technology and propaganda in Orwell's 1984 and our 2020. en-us 2020-08-30 20:03:41 UTC 2025-12-20 18:56:05 UTC hello@padlet.com jamesonbrown21 https://padlet.com/jamesonbrown21/vd32mcoganvaz6bv/wish/707531058 Government surveillance plays a major role in Winston Smith’s life in George Orwell’s dystopian society he creates in 1984, but in the real world today we are facing something very similar. Pretty much all of today’s phones, computers, and smart devices use some sort of sound or face detection. For example, every iPhone succeeding the iPhone 8 uses facial recognition as well as voice recognition using Siri. This is similar technology to the telescreen in 1984. Orwell states that the telescreen, “received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made...would be picked up; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment”(5). I find that interesting because even after we disable settings on our phones and devices we still don’t know if we are being watched and listened to, and more importantly who with data collection from apps and recent increases in cybercrime. We then become like Winston in the sense of having uncertainty about our own privacy and the technology invoking fear in which the inner party wanted in the people of Airstrip One.

]]> 2020-08-30 21:25:31 UTC https://padlet.com/jamesonbrown21/vd32mcoganvaz6bv/wish/707531058 jamesonbrown21 https://padlet.com/jamesonbrown21/vd32mcoganvaz6bv/wish/707588970 Orwell makes his dystopian society blatant with the sadistic uses propaganda by the inner party. “From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party: WAR IS PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH”, This is an example of propaganda Orwell introduces in the novel that illustrates the party’s purpose of controlling the thoughts of the members using and publicizing the party’s slogans, known as doublethink, as well as writing it in a way that looks trustable using the elegant font(6). Propaganda is also used to invoke fear and maintain order with posters and telescreens showing a man staring with the caption, “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU”(3). Orwell does this to prove how something as simple as propaganda can control the thoughts and behaviors of society.

]]> 2020-08-30 22:56:39 UTC https://padlet.com/jamesonbrown21/vd32mcoganvaz6bv/wish/707588970 jamesonbrown21 https://padlet.com/jamesonbrown21/vd32mcoganvaz6bv/wish/708584076 2020-08-31 13:12:33 UTC https://padlet.com/jamesonbrown21/vd32mcoganvaz6bv/wish/708584076