From Telescreens to InfoDom

This book comparatively analyzes Fido Nesti's 1984: The Graphic Novel and Malka Older's Infomocracy to explore the psychological anxieties surrounding surveillance in dystopian literature. The study integrates Freud's psychoanalytic structural model (id, ego, superego) with Foucault's Panopticon theory to examine how different regimes of control-totalitarian and algorithmic-strain individual psychology. Nesti's 1984 portrays overt, fear-based panoptic control, visually suppressing Winston Smith's identity. Infomocracy presents a subtler, technocratic dominance maintained by algorithmic governance that compels self-surveillance. The research demonstrates that while the means of control differ, both societies necessitate profound internal conflicts. By focusing on defense mechanisms like repression, denial, and projection, the study reveals comparable psychic outcomes: anxiety, self-censorship, and fragmented identity. Ultimately, this work argues that combining psychoanalytic and Foucauldian theories offers a multidimensional view of how power embeds itself in the psychological fabric, highlighting the crucial need to examine the mental toll of control in our digitized world.