George Orwell

1984, the novel, in the Real World

Our project is a research project comparing government surveillance in China, the United States, and the fictitional Oceania from the novel 1984. China and the fictitional Oceania are widely understood to be authoritarian states, the United States prides itself on being "the land of the free." What we found was that what is widely understood is the United States is not as different as imagined and that widespread surveillance typical of totalitarian societities is taking place in the United States.