Nineteen Eighty-Four has entered English culture as a by-word for a wired-up world of alienation and surveillance. The revolution in communications technology is often seen as synonymous with creeping growth of state oppression. It is the capitalist democracies which have created the information revolution, but will that technology lead us down a totalitarian path?
The book examines to what extent the picture painted by Orwell provides an accurate reflection of 1984 as it is, and looks at developments in the control of work, leisure and the environment and the role played by censorship, popaganda, intelligence and surveillance.




Contents

INTERPRETATIONS
1. The Making of 1984 - Crispin Aubrey
2. Reclaiming Orwell - David Widgery
3. Desire is Thoughtcrime - Jenny Taylor

COMMUNICATIONS
4. Newspeak: It's The Real Thing - Paul Chilton
5. The Tyranny of Language - Florence Lewis and Peter Moss

TECHNOLOGIES
6. Taming the Universal Machine - Christopher Roper
7. The Robots' Return? - Mike Cooley and Mike Johnson
8. Information as Power - Paul Lashmar

ENVIRONMENT
9. Big Brother Drives a Bulldozer - Colin Ward
10. Hard Machines, Soft Messages - Philip Corrigan
11. The Conscription of History - Patrick Wright




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