Media landscape in North Korea: How strong is the wind of change (original) (raw)
While most of Asian countries have seen a massive transformation of media landscape in the last two decades, North Korea remains a strictly closed regime with the state’s total control over the media system. The 2014 Press Freedom Index ranks North Korea as the second least free media environment in the world, only after Eritrea, the position it has consistently held since the index was introduced in 2002 (Reporters without Borders 2014). While the country in the horn of Africa remains in the world’s blind spot, North Korea has always been a focal point in global media, with any news coming out from the “world’s most secretive state” (Sweeney 2013) is received with much excitement. Many awaits the end of this information draught as recent political, social, economic, and technological changes have made this secretive country more exposed to the outside world, which are expected to challenge the regime’s total information monopoly over the society. Among these are the increasing exposure of North Koreans to outside foreign media, including foreign broadcast radio, televisions, and DVDs (Kretchun and Kim, 2012), and the appearance of “clandestine journalism” (Maslow 2012: 273-276), which claims to be some kind of citizen journalism within the country (Chiu 2010), and the more availability of new communication technologies such as the internet and USB sticks. These new developments have made the current media and information environment in North Korea much more complex than perhaps any previous time in its history, when little was written beyond official North Korean propaganda and anti-North Korean propaganda (Amstrong 2011: 357). This chapter attempts to give a more systematic understanding of the media landscape in North Korea within the new context.
Sign up to get access to over 50M papers
Sign up for access to the world's latest research
Related papers
Internet and Journalism in North Korea: Strict Media Control in the Globalization Era
The World Conference on Social Sciences and Humanities / SPAIN, 2019
In this research I will try to examine the structure of the online newspapers-Rodong Sinmun and Pyongyang Times-English pages which are published compatible with the official North Korean ideology, Juche. As it is well-known, all kinds of media are under the strict control of the North Korean government. Newspapers and internet are also takes their share from that control. Media is also serving as a propaganda tool of the Kim Family and the Juche ideology. North Korean online newspapers such as Rodong Sinmun and Pyongyang Times are published in English and some other foreign languages in order to propagandize the other nations about the achievements of the ideology and the country. In this research, first of all we will try to understand the main structure of the media in general under the banner of the Juche ideology. After understanding the main structure, the brief history of the press and journalism in North Korea will be given. After 1990's the collapse of the USSR and the Eastern Bloc also affected the North Korean politics by forcing to become a more isolated country in the age of internet and globalization. This research also points out how North Korean government is responding to the globalization process and how it uses the internet in the country while protecting the Juche system. Along with the literature review method, the historical descriptive model will be used in order to explain the situation.
Telling the Subversive Truth: Information Dissemination and North Korea’s Future
The Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, 2011
The article argues that North Korean society is designed in a way which makes it quite immune to pressure and incentives which originate externally. The only force which in the long run has the capacity to place the North Korean leaders under sufficient pressure is the North Korean people (and the Cold War experience demonstrated that such pressure might be decisive). Due to the peculiar situation of the divided nation and the exceptional success of the South, the North Korean regime is especially vulnerable to the spread of truthful and uncensored information about the outside world. So, a low-profile, determined and prolonged information dissemination campaign is necessary. The North Korean populace should be made aware of the prosperity of South Korea. The nationalist pretensions of the Kim regime should be rebuffed. The North Koreans should also be frankly informed of the less attractive features of the modern world as well. While radio broadcasts remain the major media for delivering the message, the spread of new digital technologies creates new opportunities which should be seriously exploited as well, including video documentaries and electronic books.
International Journal of Communication, 2020
Recently, North Korean media has engendered greater connectedness with the outside world. One important goal of the North Korean regime is to create ties with Koreans living outside the country through its official website. Analyzing media representation of a transborder Korean nation, this article discusses the shifts that have occurred in the recent context of the peace process on the Korean peninsula. I argue that the transborder nation- building in North Korean official media reveals a hybrid form of patriotism and nationalism that juxtaposes loyalty to the nation and loyalty to the state. North Korean media thus emerges as a critical site where the two loyalties coexist, demonstrating an attempt to provide the impression of a whole—albeit divided and dispersed—Korean nation.
International Journal of Communication, 2020
Although North Korea is increasingly in the limelight of international news, a systematic review has yet to offer an accumulated body of knowledge regarding North Korea and its related communication scholarship. This study assesses the current state of research on media and communication in, around, and about North Korea from 2000 to June 2019. It examines a total of 85 research articles published in 57 journals. Overall, it finds an explosion in research after 2009. Findings reveal that research overwhelmingly deals with content analysis of Western media coverage, which indicates a strong influence of Cold War binaries. Findings also show that North Korea’s media environment has been moving toward more openness and better connectivity. Ultimately, this study finds a need for more comparative research to examine not only content, but also audience and producers—to include those inside North Korea, for which innovative, interdisciplinary approaches are called for.
The role of foreign media and data transfer devices in changing the views of the DPRK s citizens
Athenaeum. Polskie Studia Politologiczne, 2020
-North Korea is often seen as the most isolated country in the world. This isolation may be one of the key factors ensuring the rule of the Kim's family. For the last several years, however, the information barrier has been increasingly violated there. This article therefore describes how information is provided to the DPRK and examines whether this process can cause significant socio-political changes in North Korea�
Looking for Answers: Western media coverage of North Korea has much news, little meaning
The rumor mill has been working overtime in recent weeks due to a spate of unprecedented and often contradictory news items coming out of Pyongyang—items which, individually, wouldn’t raise more than a few eyebrows, mostly just among longtime Korea watchers, but which in the aggregate would seem to suggest that potentially significant changes are afoot in the Hermit Kingdom. While the mainstream media is geared toward sensationalistic reporting anything regarding President Kim Jong Un—even, as in recent reports, his conspicuous absence from the public eye—other events involving senior officeholders in Pyongyang have virtually slipped unnoticed under the media’s radar, making it worth taking a step back to analyze just what, if anything, these various events signal.
2007
an outside member of this dissertation committee, shared his time for suggesting a bright idea, reviewing, and commenting whenever needed. There were special friends (scils_kr) who shared intellectual as well as emotional experiences with me during the past several years at Rutgers. I also would like to thank Joan Chabrak who serves as an administrative secretary for her constant encouragement and friendship. I'd like to show my special thanks to all my family-Yung, Paul, Stephen and Sunny-for their being with me. Although I couldn't be much help when they needed me, they still loved me and trusted my decision. Once again, I'd like to say "I love you." v
International Journal of Communication, 2020
Research on North Korea’s internationally oriented media remains sparse, with most studies conducting comparative framing analyses of its nuclear program with other nations’ national media. While these studies find national press agencies differentially framing the issue along their national interests, questions remain regarding whether such coverage influences others to shift their perspectives and, if so, why. To address these questions, we evaluate North Korean narrative penetration in Russian and Chinese news through the framework of strategic narratives. We conducted a quantitative and qualitative narrative analysis of 1,045 news articles from eight Russian and Chinese news sources for references made to North Korean sources from May 2017 to August 2018. The findings indicate that increasing voice was granted to North Korean narratives as North Korean actions aligned with Russian and Chinese interests; the results of this coverage included legitimizing the Kim regime, bolsterin...
Propaganda With Purpose: Uncovering Patterns in North Korean Nuclear Coverage, 1997-2012
What explains patterns in North Korea's own coverage of nuclear issues? The conventional wisdom assumes that North Korea focuses its attention on the United States and that changes in the administrations in the United States and South Korea influence such rhetoric, yet this remains largely untested. Content analysis using daily English news reports from the Korean Central News Agency from 1997 through 2012 provides an explicit base for how the regime attempts to frame nuclear issues for a foreign audience. References to the United States positively correlate with nuclear reference while findings regarding US and South Korean administrations conflict with the conventional wisdom. References to the Kims also negatively correlate with nuclear references with variation after Kim Jong Il's death. More broadly this analysis suggests the possible leverage of analyzing North Korea's own materials.
Loading Preview
Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.