Propaganda in 1984

Reality Control. Thoughtcrime. Doublethink. Newspeak. These “Orwellian” terms serve as synonyms for the word propaganda. Big Brother’s goal was for his people to believe that they were better off after the Party came to power which required manipulation of reality and personal thought. The term propaganda is a form of influence and persuasiveness that has been utilized for centuries by governments to exert power over their people. This form of influence deliberately spreads ideas that will benefit a particular cause and damage an opposing one. In looking back at history, propaganda seems to have persuaded the viewer to believe and accept information as if it were true, even if it is not. As this term “Propaganda” may be used leniently today, propaganda pervades the full range of communication genres. Any medium from news to novels and from social marketing to social networking can be used to propagate messages.

While Big Brother is deemed the leader of Oceania in George Orwell’s 1984, his control is meaningless without manipulating his people’s thoughts, knowledge, and behavior through the use of propaganda. Therefore, propaganda is key to his complete and permanent power which can be seen throughout the novel.

Propaganda is carried out and managed under the Ministry of Truth.. This is where

Winston Smith works everyday, destroying records of the past when Big Brother decides

that that past no longer exists. Winston’s job involves substituting and falsifying records in the name of Big Brother and his version of the truth. In addition to being subject to censorship and propaganda, he himself is a censor and a propagandist, again, all in the name of Big Brother and his version of the truth. Orwell claims that ”who[ever] controls the past controls the future [and] who[ever] controls the present controls the past”(Orwell 32). As he erases records of the past, he knows that what he is censoring and falsifying was probably not true either but the truth has been manipulated for so long that there is no way to actually knows what truth really is. Winston understands that “statistics [are] just as much a fantasy in their original version as in their rectified version” and that he is contributing to getting further away from the original truth (Orwell 48). Readers are exposed to Winston’s propaganda work as he creates a brand-new story to replace a story in the Times that he has been instructed to create by the Party. Winston’s concocted replacement story about the fictional Comrade Ogilvy is created with the motive to replace the story of Comrade Withers who had become an unperson. Winston decided that “what was needed was a piece of pure fantasy. Suddenly there sprang into his mind, ready-made as it were, the image of a certain Comrade Ogilvy”, a true hero recognized by the