Topic 1: What warning does the novel bring to readers at this time about the direction their society is heading? Introduction The society of NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR brings a warning to our society about where we may be headed. However, I believe that we are already at a parallel with the NINEEEN EIGHTY-FOUR society. Taking the attention of the media it becomes very clear that our society is very similar to that of NOVEEN EOTTANTAQUATTRO albeit to a lesser extent. Looking at the media we see that the media has control over what we know and therefore what we think. Therefore whoever controls the media controls our thoughts, both here and in DOVENOTTANTANTANTANTYFOUR. By showing the similarities between NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR and our world through media it becomes clear that our society is closely related to that of NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR. Controlling our knowledge The media controls our knowledge of the outside world. If we don't listen to the news we don't find out what's happening in other countries. The media can be very selective about which stories they broadcast; they will broadcast the news they think the public will want to hear. An example of this in our world was the September 11 attacks. We heard a lot of news about how about 7,000 people died, but we didn't hear about: o The floods in India that killed thousands of people o The 32,700 (approximately) people who died of starvation and treatable diseases on 9/11. In NINETEEN EIGHTY- FOUR Ingsoc controls the media. They decide what people need to know and thus effectively control their knowledge. If the party says that Oceania is at war with Eastasia, then everyone knows that it is so. This is true even if the party claims that Oceania is at war with Eurasia. In effect, the media controls our knowledge: we know what they choose to convey. Media Control Every media group is controlled by someone. Whoever controls it controls what is broadcast to the public. The extreme case of this is in NOVEEN EOTTONTAQUATTRO. The party controls the media and therefore all stories go through them. They convey what they think people need to know and that's the end of the story. The party is basically the media and everything they say is always correct. If it turns out to be incorrect, they edit their records to be correct.