The state is increasingly controlled by the hyper-wealthy individuals and corporations that fund politics, and its policies and propaganda increasingly reflect their interests. Standard totalitarianism, by contrast, is where the corporations are controlled by the state.
As to whether it's new, I suspect it's just today's manifestation of the same shit that's always been going on, where the wealthy and powerful oppress the poor using whatever technologies are available.
The interesting bit for me is how technology will change people's reaction. It's always been the case that powerful people can manipulate mass media to control the narrative. However, it's only recently that we have developed tools that make it possible for one person (e.g. Snowden) to undo billions of dollars of secrecy by leaking more documents that one could physically carry if they had been printed on paper, then distributing them to millions at zero cost. I think this tips the balance in favour of the citizens. I suspect that we are just seeing more of the efforts to control us exposed in the media than we normally would be aware of.
It kind of brings to mind the recent spate of child abuse revelations in the UK. I don't for a moment think that that sort of stuff only started happening a decade or two ago. Far more likely that it has always been present and only now do we have technology and media that makes it near impossible to hide, so it all comes out.
I wonder what other technologies will emerge that allow us to surveil the powerful in new ways for the first time in history, whether they like it or not.