George Orwell's book 1984 not only shook the culture when it was first published, but its echoes still pervade popular culture to this day. For example, many musicians have taken phrases from the novel to write entire songs around it. One that comes to mind is the song Testify (Rage Against the Machine) "Who controls the past now, controls the future / Who controls the present now controls the past"?
And, of course, there is the reality tv show, Big Brother, which is a direct use of the term from Orwellian environs.
Interestingly enough, Orewell wrote his book in 1949, but his ideas that some day government may become so large that it would in subtle fashion take over the right to every citizen's privacy, under the guise of protection, of course. The new intent, or so he suggested, would be that the government would become an agent of mass control. And that the majority of the population would go along with that because such fear has been created that the masses demanded 'protection'. This has played out, has it not, in the US where massive wire tapping was found to be going on in all walks of life.
Popular culture has even had its language influenced by this novel. For example, the term 'Orwellian' is used to represent an attitude or a governmental policy out of control, and one that is totally corrupt. There is the phrase 'newspeak' which is often found on the television and in newspapers. It means something that dances around the actual truth of what happened. 'Doublethink, thought police, are two other phrases that have made it into ordinary conversations nationwide as well.