's
was written in 1948, after World War II, at the end of the Print Era
(novel, newspaper) and beginning of the Analog Audio/Visual Era (TV, film). It was written in
the worst time period in human history during which the world suffered global war, the
Holocaust, political purges, nuclear strikes, and the threat of a nuclear war. 's novel attacks
both sides of these tyrannies, that of the political far right (Hitler and Mussolini's fascism)
and political far left (Lenin and Stalin's communism), in a synthesis of both extremes found in
Oceania's Inner Party. His immediate audience, of course, was his home country of England, but
in a larger sense, his novel served to warn all nations of Western democracy.
The role of mass media in 1984 parallels the role of mass
destruction. Each are used in a kind of double movement: the state-controlled media uses open
lies (Doublespeak) through a ubiquitous medium (the telescreens) to both unify the masses in
ignorance...
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