Propaganda in North Korea
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The first syllable of Juche, "ju", means the man; the second syllable, "che", means body of oneself.
Many pictures of the supreme leaders are posted throughout the country.[4]
Themes
Cult of personality
North Korean propaganda was crucial to the formation and promotion of the
Once relations with the Soviet Union were broken off, their role was expurgated, as were all other nationalists, until the claim was made that Kim founded the Communist Party in North Korea.[9] He is seldom shown in action during the Korean War, instead, soldiers are depicted as inspired by him.[10] Subsequently, many stories are recounted of his "on-the-spot guidance" in various locations, many of them being openly presented as fictional.[11]
This was supplemented with propaganda on behalf of his son, Kim Jong Il.[12] The North Korean famine of the 1990s, referred to as a "food shortage" by DPRK propaganda, produced anecdotes of Kim insisting on eating the same meager food as other North Koreans.[13]
Propaganda efforts began for the "Young General", Kim Jong Un,[14] who succeeded him as the paramount leader of North Korea on Kim Jong Il's death in December 2011.
Foreign relations
Early propaganda, in the 1940s, presented a positive Soviet–Korean relationship, often depicting Russians as maternal figures to childlike Koreans.[15] As soon as relations were less cordial, they were expurgated from historical accounts.[9] The collapse of the USSR, without a shot, is often depicted with intense contempt in sources not accessible to Russians.[16]
Americans are depicted particularly negatively.
Japan is frequently depicted as rapacious and dangerous, both in the colonial era and afterward. North Korean propaganda frequently highlighted the danger of Japanese remilitarization.[22] At the same time, the intensity of anti-Japanese propaganda underwent repeated fluctuations, depending on the improvement or deterioration of Japanese-DPRK relations. In those periods when North Korea was on better terms with Japan than with South Korea, North Korean propaganda essentially ignored the Liancourt Rocks dispute. However, if Pyongyang felt threatened by Japanese–South Korean rapprochement or sought to cooperate with Seoul against Tokyo, the North Korean media promptly raised the issue, with the aim of causing friction in Japanese–ROK relations.[23]
Friendly nations are depicted almost exclusively as tributary nations.[24] The English journalist Christopher Hitchens pointed out in the essay "A Nation of Racist Dwarfs" that propaganda has a blatantly racist and nationalistic angle:[25]
North Korean women who return pregnant from China—the regime's main ally and protector—are forced to submit to abortions. Wall posters and banners depicting all Japanese as barbarians are only equaled by the ways in which Americans are caricatured as hook-nosed monsters.[25]
South Korea
South Korea was originally depicted as a poverty-stricken land which was run by harsh and cruel dictators backed by the US and where American soldiers based there shot and slaughtered Korean women and children, but by the 1990s, too much information reached North Korea to prevent their learning that South Korea had a much stronger economy and higher living standards and quality of life, including political and social freedom, and as a result, North Korean propaganda admitted to it.[26]
"Military first"
Under Kim Jong Il, a major theme was the need of Kim to attend to the military first of all (in North Korea, this policy is called Songun), which required other Koreans to do without his close attention. This was a shift from the former policy of economic reform and diplomatic engagement.[27] This military life is presented as something that Koreans take spontaneously to, though often disobeying orders from the highest of motives.[28] The diplomatic offensive had failed to yield a normalization of relations with Japan. Meanwhile, relations with Russia remain cold and China was applying direct pressure on Pyongyang, thereby changing the dynamic of the long-standing relationship between the two erstwhile allies.[27]
Devotion to the state
Romance is often depicted in stories as being triggered solely by the person's model citizenship, as when a beautiful woman is unattractive until a man learns she volunteered to work at a potato farm.[29]
Social control
The capital city of North Korea has witnessed notable social control since Kim Il Sung's rule, and during as well as after Kim Jong Il's rule. The aerial bombardment of North Korean population centers inflicted the greatest loss of civilian life in the Korean War, which the North Koreans have claimed ever since was America's greatest war crime. Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) soldiers helped rebuild bridges, elementary schools, factories, and apartments. In February 1955, the 47th Brigade of the CPV rebuilt the Pyongyang Electric Train Factory.[30]
The city's reconstruction was supervised by Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il.[2] The DPRK, led by Kim Il Sung and supported by the Soviets, was left with a scene of complete and utter destruction; with the exception of a handful of buildings Pyongyang had been completely flattened. For a young general with socialist ideals, this was seen as a clean slate, on top of which a new country, both physically and ideologically, could be built.[31]
Kim Jong Il favored grand scale buildings and monuments. The giant pyramid of the
Women in North Korea
The cultural identity of North Korea was deeply rooted in
Food shortage
The North Korean famine was admitted within propaganda to be solely a food shortage, ascribed to bad weather and failure to implement Kim's teachings, but unquestionably better than situations outside North Korea.[38]
The government urged the use of non-nutritious and even harmful "food substitutes" such as sawdust.[39]
Practices
Every year, a state-owned publishing house[
The propaganda in North Korea is controlled mainly by the
Posters and slogans
Posters depict the correct actions for every part of life, down to appropriate clothing.
Art
Fine art often depicts militaristic themes.[44] The Flower Girl, a revolutionary opera allegedly penned by Kim Il Sung himself, was turned into a movie, the most popular one in North Korea.[45] It depicts its heroine's sufferings in the colonial era until her partisan brother returns to exact vengeance on their oppressive landlord, at which point she pledges support for the revolution.[46]
Music
The country's supreme leaders have had hymns dedicated to them that served as their signature tune and were repetitively broadcast by the state media:
- "Song of General Kim Il Sung" (for Kim Il Sung)
- "Song of General Kim Jong Il" and "No Motherland Without You" (for Kim Jong Il)
- "Footsteps", "Onwards Toward the Final Victory" and "We Will Follow You Only" (for Kim Jong Un)
Film
The North Korean government also runs a film industry. North Korean movies depict the glory of North Korean life and the atrocities of Western Imperialism, with a key role of providing on-screen role models.[48] The film industry is run through Pyongyang University of Cinematic and Dramatic Arts.[49] Kim Jong Il was a self-proclaimed genius of film.[49] In 1973, he authored On the Art of the Cinema, a treatise on film theory and filmmaking.[50] He was rumored to own over 20,000 DVDs in his personal collection. Kim believed that cinema was the most important of the arts. Domestically, these films are given lavish receptions. International critics cite the films as propaganda, because of their unreal depictions of North Korea.[51] Recently, there has been an increase in animated films. The animated films carry political and military messages aimed at the youth of North Korea.[48]
Leaflets
The North Korean government is known for dropping propaganda leaflets to South Korean soldiers, just across the Demilitarized Zone. The leaflets are dropped across in a floating balloon. The leaflets criticize the South Korean government and praise North Korea.[52]
Social media
North Korea made its first entry into the social media market in 2010. The country has launched its own website,
Uriminzokkiri
Uriminzokkiri is a website that provides Korean-language news and propaganda from North Korea's central news agency. The website offers translation in Korean, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and English.[58] Uriminzokkiri means 'on our own as our nation'.[59] The site includes articles entitled "South Korea's Pro-US/Japan Corporate Media: Endless Demonization Campaigns Against DPRK", "The Project for New American Century: The New World Order & The US's Continued CRIMES" and "Kim Jong-un Sends Musical Instruments to Children's Palaces". The website also contains a page for tv.urminzokkiri. This page contains videos showing news clips criticizing imperialist movements, clips showing the bravery of Korean people and the power of its military.[60]
The North Korean Facebook account, also titled Uriminzokkiri, appeared a week after the South Korean government blocked the North Korean Twitter account.[53] The page represents "the intentions of North and South Koreas and compatriots abroad, who wish for peace, prosperity, and unification of our homeland". There were over 50 posts on Uriminzokkiri's wall, including links to reports that criticize South Korea and the U.S. as "warmongers", photos of picturesque North Korean landscapes and a YouTube video of a dance performance celebrating leader Kim Jong Il, "guardian of the homeland and creator of happiness".[61]
YouTube
The channel named Uriminzokkiri was opened in July 2010.[54] It has uploaded over 11,000 videos, including clips that condemn and mock South Korea and the U.S. for blaming North Korea for the sinking of a South Korean warship in March 2010. The account has posted videos dubbing United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton a "Maniac in a Skirt".[62] The account had over 3,000 subscribers and over 3.3 million views as of 28 November 2012;[54] by early 2015, numbers had grown to over 11,000 subscribers and more than 11 million views.[63] On 5 February 2013, a propaganda film that featured New York in flames was blocked and then taken down after Activision pointed out that the video used copyrighted footage from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.[64] The channel was shut down in 2017.
The government's official Twitter account is also named Uriminzok ('Our race'). It gained 8,500 followers in the first week.
Flickr
The Flickr account was started in August 2010 and deactivated in April 2013 but is now active from some point in 2017. The site included many pictures of Kim Jong Un receiving applause from the military; children eating, in school, and enjoying life; booming agriculture; and modern city life.[69] The Uriminzokkiri Flickr account was hacked by Anonymous in April 2013, as part of the group's attack on North Korea's social media accounts.[70]
Propaganda village
Kijong-dong is a village in Pyonghwa-ri,
The official position of the North Korean government is that the village contains a 200-family collective farm, serviced by a childcare center, kindergarten, primary and secondary schools, and a hospital. However, observation from South Korea suggests that the town is an uninhabited Potemkin village built at great expense in the 1950s in a propaganda effort to encourage defections from South Korea and to house the DPRK soldiers manning the extensive network of artillery positions, fortifications and underground marshalling bunkers that abut the border zone.[71]
See also
- List of North Korean propaganda slogans
- Propaganda in South Korea
- Communist propaganda
- Voice of Korea
- Censorship in North Korea
- Let's trim our hair in accordance with the socialist lifestyle
References
- U.S. Army War College, archived from the originalon 12 April 2010
- ^ ISBN 978-0815798200. Retrieved 3 November 2017.
- ^ DPRK's Socialist Constitution (Full Text). The People's Korea. 19 September 1998. p. 4. Archived from the original on 28 October 2013.
- The Huffington Post.
- ^ "North Korea profile". BBC News Asia. BBC. 14 October 2014.
- ^ Becker 2005, p. 51.
- ^ Myers 2010, p. 37.
- ^ Myers 2010, pp. 36–7.
- ^ a b Becker 2005, p. 53.
- ^ Myers 2010, pp. 101–2.
- ^ Myers 2010, p. 103.
- ^ "Chinoy, Mike (1 March 2003). "North Korea's propaganda machine". International CNN: Asia. Panmunjom, South Korea: CNN.
- ^ Becker 2005, p. 40.
- ^ Myers 2010, p. 65.
- ^ Myers 2010, p. 35.
- ^ Myers 2010, p. 130.
- ^ a b Bannerman, Lucy (3 May 2008). "Gallery show for North Korea's propaganda". The Times. Times Newspapers Ltd.
- ^ Myers 2010, p. 135.
- ^ Myers 2010, pp. 136–7.
- ^ "North Korea celebrates 'Hate America' month". New York Post. Associated Press. 25 June 2015. Retrieved 25 June 2018.
- ^ "In sign of detente, North Korea skips annual anti-US rally". AP News. Pyongyang. Associated Press. 25 June 2018. Retrieved 25 June 2018.
- ^ Myers 2010, p. 131.
- ^ Szalontai, Balázs (Winter 2013). "Instrumental Nationalism? The Dokdo Problem Through the Lens of North Korean Propaganda and Diplomacy". The Journal of Northeast Asian History. 10 (2): 105–162. Archived from the original on 1 September 2014.
- ^ Myers 2010, p. 129–30.
- ^ a b Hitchens, Christopher (1 February 2010). "A Nation of Racist Dwarfs: Kim Jong-il's regime is even weirder and more despicable than you thought". Fighting Words. Slate. Retrieved 23 December 2012.
- ^ Myers 2010, p. 152.
- ^ ISBN 9781842779057. Retrieved 27 October 2017.
- ^ Myers 2010, pp. 83–4.
- ^ Myers 2010, p. 88.
- ^ K. Armstrong, Charles (16 March 2009). "The Destruction and Reconstruction of North Korea, 1950 - 1960". The Asia-Pacific Journal. 7.
- ^ Davidson, Alex (6 September 2016). "Architecture is Propaganda: How North Korea Turned the Built Environment into a Tool for Control". ArchDaily. Retrieved 3 November 2017.
- ^ Chung, Stephy (15 August 2016). "Why North Korea's capital is the 'perfect science fiction film set'". CNN. Retrieved 3 November 2017.
- ^ Thomas Bruce, Scott (28 January 2014). "Information Technology and Social Controls in North Korea" (PDF). Korea Economic Institute of America. Retrieved 3 November 2017.
- ^ "North Korea's tightly controlled media". No. Asia Pacific. BBC News. 19 December 2011. Retrieved 3 November 2017.
- ^ ISBN 9780472026890. Retrieved 3 November 2017.
- ^ Il-Sung, Kim (1992). With the Century. Pyongyang: Workers' Party of Korea Publishing House.
- ^ Park, Kyung Ae (June 1992). "Women and Social Change in South and North Korea: Marxist and Liberal Perspectives". Women and International Development.
- ^ Myers 2010, p. 119.
- ^ Becker 2005, pp. 36–7.
- ISBN 978-1-317-56741-7.
- ^ Lai, Lawrence (22 December 2011). "North Korean Propaganda Posters". Picture This: ABC News. ABC News Internet Ventures. Archived from the original on 21 June 2012.
- ^ Zwirko, Colin (2020). "'Let's break through the barriers!' North Korea's new political slogans for 2020". NK News.
- ^ Johnson, Robert (20 December 2011). "Check Out These Twisted North Korean Propaganda Posters". Business Insider. Business Insider Inc.
- ^ Ferris-Rotman, Amie (14 January 2011). "Exhibitions: Art or propaganda? North Korea exhibit in Moscow". Reuters. Moscow, Russia.
- ^ Myers 2010, p. 91.
- ^ Myers 2010, p. 92.
- ^ Getlen, Larry (5 November 2016). "Inside North Korea's bizarre film industry and its American GI star". New York Post. Retrieved 25 October 2020.
- ^ a b Gluck, Caroline (11 January 2002). "North Korea's film industry boom". BBC News: Asia-Pacific. BBC.
- ^ a b "North Korea's cinema of dreams: 101 East gains rare insight into the beating heart of North Korea's film industry", 101 East, Al Jazeera English, 29 December 2011
- ISBN 978-0-7864-6526-2. Retrieved 29 April 2015.
- ^ Jones, Sam (16 October 2012). "A Cinematic Revolution: North Korea's Film Industry". AGI (Asian Global Impact). Archived from the original on 24 May 2013.
- ^ "North Korea drops propaganda leaflets over border". The Telegraph. AFP. 2 October 2012.
- ^ a b c d e Roberts, Laura (21 August 2010). "North Korea joins Facebook: North Korea appears to have joined the social networking site Facebook after its Twitter account was blocked by South Korea under the country's security laws". The Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group.
- ^ a b c "uriminzokkiri". YouTube. Archived from the original on 13 July 2017. Retrieved 28 November 2012.
- ^ a b Yoon, Sangwon (17 August 2010). "North Korea says it has joined Twitter, YouTube". Seoul, South Korea: Associated Press.
- ^ "YouTube blocks North Korean state television channel". BBC. 15 December 2016.
- ^ "North Korea's Twitter, flickr accounts hacked amid rising tension". Associated Press. 4 April 2013.
- ^ "English". Uriminzokkiri. Archived from the original on 11 January 2015. Retrieved 4 February 2015.
- ^ Roberts, Laura (21 August 2010). "North Korea joins Facebook". Telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 25 May 2020.
- ^ "Uriminzokkiri TV" (in Korean). Uriminzokkiri. Archived from the original on 20 January 2013. Retrieved 29 November 2012.
- ^ "North Korea Joins Facebook, After Opening Twitter and YouTube Accounts". Seoul, South Korea. Associated Press. 20 August 2010. Archived from the original on 24 February 2021.
- ^ Choe Sang-Hun (17 August 2010). "North Korea Takes to Twitter and YouTube". The New York Times (New York ed.). Seoul, South Korea. p. A7.
- ^ "uriminzokkiri: About". YouTube. Retrieved 4 February 2015.
- ^ "North Korea propaganda taken off YouTube after Activision complaint". BBC News. 6 February 2013.
- ^ "uriminzokkiri (uriminzok)". Twitter. Retrieved 28 November 2012.
- ^ "uriminzokkiri (@uriminzok)". Twitter. Retrieved 4 February 2015.
- ^ "North Korea's Twitter account hacked to call for uprising: The North Korean government's official Twitter account appears to have been hacked, with the feed calling for an uprising to remove the leaders from power". The Telegraph. 8 January 2011.
- ^ Rodriguez, Salvador (4 April 2013). "North Korea's Twitter, Flickr accounts hacked; Anonymous speaks up". Los Angeles Times.
- ^ "uriminzokkiri's photostream". Flickr. Archived from the original on 20 December 2010.
- ^ "Anonymous 'hacks' North Korea social network accounts". BBC News. 4 April 2013.
- ^ Tran, Mark (6 June 2008). "Travelling into Korea's demilitarised zone: Run DMZ". The Guardian. Retrieved 5 July 2009.
Kijong-dong was built specially in the north area of DMZ. Designed to show the superiority of the communist model, it has no residents except soldiers.
Sources
- Becker, Jasper (1 May 2005). Rogue Regime: Kim Jong Il and the Looming Threat of North Korea. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-517044-3.
- ISBN 978-1-933633-91-6.
Further reading
- Portal, Jane (2005). Art Under Control in North Korea. Reaktion Books. ISBN 978-1-86189-236-2.