Greylyn Padula 1984 Research Paper November 20, 2015 1984 In his novel 1984, George Orwell depicts the life of Winston Smith, a low-ranking member of the ruling Party. Winston lives in Oceania, a dystopian society where a totalitarian government completely deprives him of all freedoms even to the extent of his own thoughts. This society appears to be unrealistic when compared to modern society, however many of Orwell's predictions have proven correct. One of his predictions about society is the government's control of the media. Throughout the book, Orwell uses many things to support his claim that whoever controls the media has the power to control the people. This idea can be seen through Winston’s job. His entire job is sorting through articles and newspapers and changing everything Big Brother says to be true. “And the Records Department, after all, was itself only a …show more content…
For example, In the United States, the same six sources control ninety percent of the media. These companies are GE, Newscorp, Viacom, Time Warner, and CBS. Just thirty years earlier there were as many as fifty different companies in control of the media. (Business Insider) The benefit and primary reason for this of this consolidation is an increase in revenue. Also, bringing many groups of people together under a shared leader increases the companies diversity and allows access to more resources. However, even with all of these benefits, this drastic consolidation is concerning. When the number of people in control begins to decrease, each persons power increases. According to this article, 232 media executives control the information diet of 277 million Americans. This is frightening because this gives a small amount of people the power to choose what we should and shouldn’t know about the world around us. The lack of competition also makes the companies consider money more important than common