Brief description
Ubiquitous surveillance of population in public and in private spaces.
Pull Quotes
The instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely. (p. 20)
(..) except by direct enquiry it was never possible to discover where anyone lived. There were no directories of any kind. (p 347)
(..) in the past no government had the power to keep its citizens under constant surveillance. (..) With the development of television, and the technical advance which made it possible to receive and transmit simultaneously on the same instrument, private life came to an end. (p. 444)
Work that the situation appears in
| Title | Publication Type | Year | Creator |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nineteen Eighty-Four | Narrative, Novel | George Orwell |
Who does what?
This technology
This entity
This character
Machine P.O.V
Not machine P.O.V.
Record Status
Notes
Interesting to note that surveillance by the government is ubiquitous and constant, but sousveilance is impossible - "(..) except by direct enquiry it was never possible to discover where anyone lived. There were no directories of any kind. (p 347)." Ideally we should also reread the book to see if there are more explicit mentions of VISUAL surveillance, and perhaps especially of visual manipulation of information, as with the falsification and constant rewriting of newspapers and history books - was any of this visual? -Jill
Authored by
UUID
96173a49-e850-4983-8ff3-ca47a5f7dc27