Why Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four is relevant today Although what occurred in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four didn’t occur in the year 1984, it is still relevant to society today. The novel broadens our understanding of the types of media manipulation that are prevalent in contemporary society. In the U.S. the media’s greatest failure in recent times is thought to have occurred, in 2003 when George W. Bush authorized the invasion of Iraq. American newspapers ran stories without enough skepticism, and the public didn’t question the government, when Iraq didn’t have the weapons of mass destructions intelligence agencies claimed they had. Michael Shelden, and English professor and the author of Orwell: The Authorized biography, says that if we
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Michael Shleden thinks that, Orwell chose the term “Big Brother” in part because he believed that large corporations want to give the impression they’re looking our for your interests, but they really want to control you. According to Shelden, Orwell wrote 1984 as a warning. “He felt that if someone didn’t sound the warning loudly enough, eventually a lot of the freedoms that he cherished would be lost and people would wake up one day and wonder where they had gone.” (Shelden, Michael CBC.ca). The lesson Shelden draws from the novel is that, you’ll lose your liberties if you aren’t vigilant of them. A real world example of this is the controversy surrounding the validity of the news reports that U.S. Intelligence Agencies found and killed Osama Bin Laden. Paul Craig Roberts wrote in the Foreign Policy Journal, “No one will notice that those who fabricated the story forgot to show the kidney dialysis machine that, somehow, kept Bin Laden alive for a decade. No doctors were on the premises. No one will remember that Fox News reported in December, 2001, that Osama Bin Laden has passed away from his illnesses.” (Roberts, Paul Craig foreignpolicyjournal.com). Despite the fact that the public saw this Fox News report, no one questioned the media’s reports that Bin Laden had been killed in …show more content…
Witness to this is the alteration of films, as well as newspapers and pictures, effected both routinely (e.g. 190) and under special circumstances: during the Hate Week, for a tour de force in order to change all the documents testifying to the previous association with Eastasia.” (Varricchio 1). In this quotation, the literary critic Mario Varricchio highlights the main function of cinema in Nineteen Eighty-Four. Media is being used in contemporary society to perpetuate political propaganda, however in North America its being used by news organizations and other media outlets more than the government. An example of this is how the media covered up the real story behind the 1999 Chinese Embassy bombing in Belgrade. On April 24, 2015 the Washington Post reported that an American warplane accidentally struck the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in 1999 during the Kosovo campaign. William Blum wrote in the Foreign Policy Journal that, “These words appeared in the Washington Post on April 24, 2015 as part of a story about U.S. drone warfare and how an American drone attack in Pakistan in January had accidentally killed two Western aid workers. The Post felt no need to document the Belgrade incident, or explain it any further. Almost anyone who follow international news halfway seriously knows about this famous “accident” of May 7, 1999. The only problem is that the story is pure propaganda.” (Blum,
Michael Shleden thinks that, Orwell chose the term “Big Brother” in part because he believed that large corporations want to give the impression they’re looking our for your interests, but they really want to control you. According to Shelden, Orwell wrote 1984 as a warning. “He felt that if someone didn’t sound the warning loudly enough, eventually a lot of the freedoms that he cherished would be lost and people would wake up one day and wonder where they had gone.” (Shelden, Michael CBC.ca). The lesson Shelden draws from the novel is that, you’ll lose your liberties if you aren’t vigilant of them. A real world example of this is the controversy surrounding the validity of the news reports that U.S. Intelligence Agencies found and killed Osama Bin Laden. Paul Craig Roberts wrote in the Foreign Policy Journal, “No one will notice that those who fabricated the story forgot to show the kidney dialysis machine that, somehow, kept Bin Laden alive for a decade. No doctors were on the premises. No one will remember that Fox News reported in December, 2001, that Osama Bin Laden has passed away from his illnesses.” (Roberts, Paul Craig foreignpolicyjournal.com). Despite the fact that the public saw this Fox News report, no one questioned the media’s reports that Bin Laden had been killed in …show more content…
Witness to this is the alteration of films, as well as newspapers and pictures, effected both routinely (e.g. 190) and under special circumstances: during the Hate Week, for a tour de force in order to change all the documents testifying to the previous association with Eastasia.” (Varricchio 1). In this quotation, the literary critic Mario Varricchio highlights the main function of cinema in Nineteen Eighty-Four. Media is being used in contemporary society to perpetuate political propaganda, however in North America its being used by news organizations and other media outlets more than the government. An example of this is how the media covered up the real story behind the 1999 Chinese Embassy bombing in Belgrade. On April 24, 2015 the Washington Post reported that an American warplane accidentally struck the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in 1999 during the Kosovo campaign. William Blum wrote in the Foreign Policy Journal that, “These words appeared in the Washington Post on April 24, 2015 as part of a story about U.S. drone warfare and how an American drone attack in Pakistan in January had accidentally killed two Western aid workers. The Post felt no need to document the Belgrade incident, or explain it any further. Almost anyone who follow international news halfway seriously knows about this famous “accident” of May 7, 1999. The only problem is that the story is pure propaganda.” (Blum,