Alternative media : Empowerment in individuals in totalitarian societies.

Abstract: My thesis explores changes in media technologies and the way alternative media affect the dynamics of power in totalitarian societies. How totalitarian states respond to these media trends and the security importance of the information coming from the inside of the totalitarian territory are the main interests of my essay. My primary sources in this research are Animal Farm, a novella by George Orwell; the film The Lives of Others (2006) by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck; and the recently published novel, The Revisionists, by Thomas Mullen. My primary goals in this essay are firstly to argue that the social and political conditions presented in these works match definitions of totalitarian societies. Using my secondary sources, I introduce the main characteristics of totalitarian societies and highlight their mechanism in my primary sources. Secondly, I investigate the role of media in such societies along with technological changes that have added new items to security concerns. Besides reading the reflections of reality in fictional presentations in some cases, I give examples from the 21st century world that we are living in and argue that it is an extension of the conditions presented in Animal Farm and The Lives of Others.