The concept of the telescreen has been explored as a metaphor or allegory for the erosion of privacy in totalitarian regimes, as well as in the modern era in the context of Internet- and cellular-based devices that allow for the surreptitious collection of individuals' audiovisual data, frequently without their explicit consent or awareness.
As later explained in Emmanuel Goldstein's book of which Winston Smith reads some excerpts, the Party does not feel threatened by the Proles, assuming that they would never rebel on their own, and therefore does not find a need to monitor their daily lives.
It is unclear whether they can be used anywhere in Airstrip One (Britain) other than London; the novel at one point suggests technical limitations, forcing the Party to use hidden microphones and patrols for surveillance purposes in the countryside.
It is likely that Inner Party members are permitted to fully turn off their telescreens but O’Brien most likely kept the microphone on to expose Winston and Julia as Thought Criminals.
They broadcast propaganda about Oceania's military victories, economic production figures, spirited renditions of the national anthem to heighten patriotism, and Two Minutes Hate, which is a two-minute film of Emmanuel Goldstein's wishes for freedom of speech and press, which the citizens have been trained to disagree with through doublethink.
[2] The word "telescreen" appears occasionally in the early science fiction novels of Robert Heinlein, published in the late 1940s - roughly concurrently with Orwell's book.
The telescreen he created was based on some already existing technologies (see history of television), although the first surveillance cameras began to be sold in the United States only in 1949, shortly after the publication of the novel.
[3] According to the Canadian literary scholar Thomas Dilworth, Orwell, inventing telescreens, might have been inspired by the film Modern Times directed by Charlie Chaplin, where a device recording and receiving an audiovisual signal was shown.
[7] Telescreens have been described as an allegory or metaphor for informers in communist countries[8] or, more broadly, of the loss of privacy in totalitarian states.