Reading Notes on 1984

In the 1984 reading, I noticed that the government and police had the most power. They (the government) used the power of the media to place deep fears into people minds in order to control them. Winston writes that, “Last night to the flicks. All war films. One very good one of a ship full of refugees being bombed somewhere in the Mediterranean. Audience much amused by shots of a great huge fat man trying to swim away with a helicopter after him. First you saw him wallowing along in the water like a porpoise, then you saw him through the helicopters gunsights, then he was full of holes and the sea round him turned pink and he sank as suddenly as though the holes had let in the water (11).” By showing only violent images on the ‘television’ can begin to put a reality to those images, even if the images are fake shown enough times people may begin to think these events are really happening. While the writing was not an actual event, it conjured up another memory that had happened earlier in the day. I believe that this happens to me sometimes. Sometimes I will remember something that I thought happened to someone but come to find out it was part of a series on television or somehow my brain blurred the two similar stories into one. There is also the problem of viewing people on television and thinking that because you have seen so much of their lives unfold on screen, that off-screen you know them as a person, too. With the media and modern-day surveillance I think this is becoming the ‘norm’. We feel closer to those we see on shows like ‘Big Brother’ and ‘The Jersey Shore’ than we do to people sitting right next to us on the room. I am not sure why we sympathize so much with those we do not know but see on screen.