Media landscape in north korea how strong is the wind of change

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 bey

Media landscape in North Korea: How strong is the wind of change?

Khac Giang Nguyen

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

Introduction

North Korea has always drawn in attention from scholars of all social science disciplines, not only because of its perceived military threat to the East Asian region, but also because the country is such a distinct case study of a closed regime in the era of globalization Yet academic researches on the country have not matched with the growing interest, due to the lack of information and the extreme difficulty, if not impossibility, to conduct field researches inside the

regime In the word of Beck (2011), studies on North Korea have been “more often dark art rather than science.”

The situation has changed slightly for the last decade, as significant efforts, both scholarly and non-scholarly, have been made to capture various angles of North Korea, which offer diverse analyses and useful observations of its system, society, and people (Amstrong 2011: 357) In terms of media studies, the most noteworthy work is possibly “A quiet opening” by Kretchun and Kim (2012) of InterMedia, which describes the level of access to outside information of North Koreans Other studies might include assessments from organizations such as Freedom House (2013), Committee to Protect Journalists (2013) and Reporters without Borders (2014); excerpts from books of Oh and Hassig (2000), Haggard and Noland (2011) and Demick (2010); and from journal articles such as those of Lee (2009), Byman (2010), and Amstrong (2005) Except the above few examples, however, scholarship on North Korean media environment has been largely ignored or sidelined in comparison to other disciplines Even for the aforementioned works, authors tend to specialize on one angle of North Korean media landscape, or just sparingly mention it, rather than describe at length the topic This creates a situation where a broad understanding of North Korean media environment is absent, making it harder for scholars who want to investigate deeper into the issue This is a pity, because a better understanding of a country’s media will provide better understanding of its society (McLuhan 1994)

Therefore, a background work that provides a basic yet inclusive account of North Korean media landscape is strongly needed for interested audience and scholars who are not familiar with the topic

In this chapter, the author attempts to fill that gap by systematically mapping North Korean media landscape It proposes that the North Korean media environment can be divided into three categories: state-owned media, clandestine journalism (one that is practiced by “underground” journalists), and foreign media that focuses on North Korean audience The author will also examine the relations of each category with the state, media control and regulations, and the level of internet development in the country

Figure 1: North Korean media landscape

This chapter does not intend to give an empirically grounded research on North Korea media landscape due to the difficult political conditions with which previous studies have also faced Instead, it will utilize other authors’ works, accounts of North Korean defectors, and official North Korean regulation documents to make a meaningful interpretation of North Korean media system While this approach might not lead to a breakthrough in the field of study, the author believes that given the current situations any careful and serious research will be beneficial by setting a more concrete background from which further studies can be done in the future

Under the iron grip

North Korea, along with China, Vietnam, Laos, and Cuba, was one of the last regimes bearing the flag of communism after the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and Soviet Union at the end of the

State-owned mass media Clandestine media Foreign media

-Radio -Newspapers -Online websites

20th century All are regarded as “authoritarian” (Economist 2013, Freedom House 2013), and while others have gradually transformed and achieved some degree of economic and political openness, North Korea has been long considered as “the world’s most closed, impenetrable [society], with a totally controlled press, [and] sharp restrictions on travel in and out of the country” (Cumings 1990:53)

Sola Pool (1973) suggests that under dictatorship, the public are in considerable need of reliable information Therefore, when the state control over the media ceases to exist, the political system

is likely to collapse quickly It is because “free access to information and a free press serve as a check on government, aid in transparency, reduce corruption, allow debate and criticism of government decisions” (Etling et al 2010: 38-39)

It is thus logical that, as other authoritarian regimes, North Korea’s strategy to maintain power includes manipulation of ideas and information (Byman 2010: 45) The regime does so by denying its people the ability to access foreign information, putting all media in the hand of the state, and severely punishing people for trying to access “illegal” information sources, e.g foreign radio channels and DVDs smuggled into the country (ibid.)

The country’s constitution dictates that the press “serve the aims of strengthening the dictatorship of the proletariat, bolstering the political unity and ideological conformity of the people and rallying them solidly behind the Party and the Great Leader in the cause of revolution” (Djankov et al 2001) It is, though, not true that the North Korean media system has remained the same since Kim Il-sung established the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) in 1945

The development of North Korean nationalism can be divided into the three broad stages: the first period of Marxist-Stalinist ideology, the second period of Juche (self-reliance) ideology, and the third period of Chosun minjok cheil jui (“Korea is best” nationalism) (Lee and Bairner 2009: 392) Choi (2004) considers the turning point of the North Korean media system was the fifth Workers’ Party’s national convention in 1970, in which Juche was adopted as the leading ideology, on the foundation of Marxist-Leninist principles Despite the fact that the communist principles are gradually ceased to make an impact in North Korea, in exchange of the locally-created Juche, the regime still applies Leninist ideas of controlling the press, which believes “a newspaper should work not only as a collective propagandist and agitator but also an organizer

of the people” (as cited in Kim 2010: 250) As such, the overall characteristics of the North

Korean media system can be seen as follow

Media is under the total control of the ruler Absolute power remains in the hand of the Korean

Workers' Party (KWP), more particularly, in the hand of the Kim family, which has ruled the country in three generations since its establishment after the Second World War After 2009, the country officially removed all reference to communism in its revised Constitution, making Juche the regime’s only official ideology and Songun (military first) as the strategy (Herskovitz and Kim 2009) However, the system that has been bred by the former USSR and China is still heavily influenced by Leninism - Stalinism, under which the state takes control over almost everything in life The journalistic ideology of objectivity and balance is non-existent; instead, the press is deemed to be the mouthpiece of the ruler with three main roles: collective propagandist, collective agitator, and collective organizer (McNair 1991) It is also understandable that all official types of media in North Korea are state-owned

In North Korea, there is no fourth estate role of the media, or the fifth estate role of social media (Newman et al 2012: 7) as can be seen in other places Its authoritarian peers in Asia, the likes

of China, Vietnam, and Myanmar, possess a much higher degree of freedom for press, where journalism can play some role as watchdogs in several areas which are not considered as politically sensitive, such as environmental issues North Korean media, in contrast, is a complete servant of the state, which totally depends on the ruler for their editorial work, rather than purely journalistic decisions A vivid example is the reporting on the death of North Korean

“Dear Leader” Kim Jong-il in 2011 While he actually died of heart attack in December 17,

2011, only two days later did the Korean Central Television announced his death (Economist 2011)

The country severely lacks of infrastructure for media development The media environment in

North Korea is extremely restricted not only because of its political repression, but also its extremely poor infrastructure The North Korean power grid is considered as unreliable, and the country is constantly in short of electricity supply Satellite images show North Korea by night as

a complete hole of darkness among its shining, booming neighbors, namely China and South Korea (Haggard and Pope 2014) In addition, its telecommunication infrastructure is weak and poorly equipped, and there are just a few numbers of personal computers outside the government circles (Hachigian estimated at 100,000 overall) Out of the privileged Pyongyang, there are few other places which have access to computers and telecommunications network Fixed telephone

line numbers at 1.18 million, or 4.7 percent of the population (The CIA World Factbook 2011), with most of these are installed in government offices, collective farms, and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) In addition, owning a computer requires an extremely bothersome process, in which the applicants must go through several steps of registration with the state (Boynton 2011, Kretchun and Kim 2012) For every 100 North Koreans, only five have TVs (Cha 2012) In terms of mobile services, it has been growing dramatically in North Korea, with substantial growth on in numbers of users According to Orascom, an Egyptian company which owns 75% share of the only North Korean mobile service provider Koryolink, there are two million subscribers1 in the country, as of 2013 It is worth noting that this popular mobile service was only launched in 2008 (Kim 2014, 12) However, the network only covers 14% of North Korea’s land mass, and the use of data (3G) is restrictive due lacks of technology and political concerns (ibid.)

Internet access and foreign media is extremely limited Although there are a few disputes on its

level of information restriction, it is commonly agreed that internet service is basically null in North Korea Pyongyang makes great efforts to deny its people the ability to access foreign information (Byman 2010) While foreign tourists or journalists might use uncensored 3G data since March 2013, North Koreans are denied internet access and international calls (Hachigian

2002, 44) Only a small group of elites in North Korea, particularly those belong to the state apparatus, can have access to the internet (Boynton 2011) The country has its own local networks, or intranet, which connect computers of its institutions, government offices, and universities with one another (Williams 2010) There are four intranet systems in North Korea:

‘Gwangmyung Network’ (Bright star), ‘Changgwang Ntwork’, ‘Hwetbul network’ and ‘Chosun Information Exchange Network’ (New Focus International 2013) with basic services such as e-mails, chats, and censored online newspapers The system is, surely, heavily controlled by the state (Asia Internet History Projects 2014)

Within such strictly-controlled environment, suppressed civil society, and poor telecommunications infrastructure, how is the North Korean media landscape pictured given the booming era of information technology around the world and particularly in its neighbours? The following parts attempt to give a deep look into the different parts of the North Korean media system, including state media, clandestine media, and foreign media specialized in the country’s

1 http://announce.ft.com/Detail/?DocKey=1323-11596086-6KNVGLUPM0CJL0F1P052556BBU

public The author then gives an analysis on which way the system is heading towards, and what can be expected to be happened in North Korea from that tendency

State media as a political mobilization tool

The suppression of] information (facts, frames, histories, discourses, ideas, narratives) has been widely considered as the main “leverage” for authoritarian governments to “maintain their claims

to legitimacy” (Sullivan 2010: 6) Therefore, in an authoritarian society, media is considered more or less the mouthpiece of those who governs and does not reflect public deliberation Mass media under undemocratic regimes has been more of propaganda rather than a platform for public participation The North Korean media system is not an exception

The “official” media landscape contains only state-owned media, which includes the four

anchors: the Korea Central News Agency (KCNA), the Rodong Sinmun (the ruling Workers’ Party’s newspaper), the party’s Korean Central TV, and the Korean Central Broadcasting Station These four state-owned media outlets, covered nationwide, monopolize the worlds of their own in North Korea’s conventional media system: television, radio, and newspapers Radios and televisions, which are considered as luxury items in North Korea, are fixed to receive signals from government-run stations In addition, they must be checked and registered with the police (BBC 2011) People are able to change their radios to access foreign stations, but if inspectors discover the acts during a surprise home search, which sometimes can be quite frequent (Demick 2010), the accused will be severely punished (Byman 2010: 54) Besides the main nationwide stations, North Korea possesses two other TVs (one only available in Pyongyang) and several radio stations at provincial levels (Jae-sung 2010) The broadcasting system is technically overseen by the Chosun Central Broadcast Committee, yet in practice, under the guidance from the Propaganda and Agitation Department of the Central Committee of the Party (ibid.)

As regards newspapers, there are currently four nationally-circulated newspapers North Korea: the Rodong Sinmun (Labour Daily), the Joson Inmingun (Korean People's Army Daily), the Minju Choson (Democratic Korea), and the Rodongja Sinmum (Workers' Newspaper) These newspapers belong to their “line managers”, for example the Joson Inmingun belongs to the Korea People’s Army This model is similar to the Leninist – Stalinist model of press control seen in the Eastern Bloc and in several nominally communist countries, such as Vietnam and

China At provincial level, North Korea has several local newspapers, such as the Pyongyang Sinmun, The Pyongyang Times, the Pyeongnam Ilbo, the Pyeongbuk Ilbo, and the Gaeseong Sinmun (Yonhap News Agency 2003)

The country also has newspapers and magazines that belongs to other state organizations such as Nodong Ch'ongnyon, Ch'ollima, Choson Munhak (Korean Literature), and Choson Yesul (Korean Art) They serve as the mouthpieces of the organizations they represent, which again, the voices of the state

The Rodong Sinmun is the most widely circulated newspaper in North Korea, first published in

1945, and currently issuing 1.5 million copies daily As it represents the Party, it is considered as the most influential media outlets in the country, along with Korean Central TV and the KCNA According to Kim (2010), anout half of the articles in The Rodong Sinmun are written in advance, in accordance with a monthly and weekly schedule, based on announcements or guidance of the KWP

In terms of content, the media concentrates more on how to promote the party’s policy than on

accuracy, objectivity and the importance of unfolding the truth to the public Most products of the North Korean media lack critical evaluation and objective observation of the current affairs and events and, thus, aim to project the interest of the ruler (Ahn 2000)

The journalism school of Kim Il-sung university in Pyongyang teaches students to comply with the “permanent information plan,” which sets up priorities for journalists’ work The first priority

is publicizing the greatness of Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il, and Kim Jong-un Then they must show the superiority of North Korean socialism and denounce imperialism Criticizing the invasion instinct of the imperialists and Japanese comes fourth (Reporters without Borders 2005)

Loyalty to the Leader and love towards him are absolute and unconditional for all media contents This is because the Leader, as the top brain of the socio-political organism, represents the integrity of the community (The Pyongyang Times, 1 August 1987, quoted in Buzo (2007) This is where the North Korean system differs from other Communist systems in Asia While the

“Party” (communist parties) stands at the centre of propaganda in China and Vietnam, sometimes with personality cults such as Mao Zedong and Ho Chi Minh (whose images have been greatly reduced since the two countries applied market economy reforms in 1980s), the propaganda in North Korea focuses mostly on the three supreme leaders: the founder and Eternal President Kim Il-sung, the Dear Leader Kim Jong-il, and the new Marshal Kim Jong-un Loyalty to the leader is

considered as "the basic trait of the communist" and "the most important quality of a successor." (Clippinger 1981: 301) This degrades all journalistic standards of North Korean media, forcing the system to creating myth and legendaries to support the legitimacy of the new leader A poem which appeared when Kim Jong-il rose to power can be a vivid example:

Ah! That road of endless loyalty

That Mother has adorned and embroidered

From the far distant Paektu forests-

How gloriously resplendent it is

Beneath the rays of our Party Center

(Choson Munhak, September 1975, pp 21-22., quoted in Clippinger (1981))

The second most important content, which is related to the first, is disseminating propaganda against the regime’s perceived enemies, namely South Korea, Japan, China, Israel, and the United States It sometimes condemns the United Nations as well, particularly when talks on the country’s nuclear program are on deadlock As such, the country’s ruler has been building a system of cryptic, semi-esoteric communication (Clippinger 1981, 289), which is used to pave the way for the Party’s policies

The vivid example is how North Korean media illustrates the country’s sports teams’ achievements They only publish sporting contents in two occasions: when their athletes are successful in international contests and or an important sporting competition is held in the country (Lee 2009: 197) The regime aims to establish triangular relations between the leader, the party, and the nation with achievements of North Koreans When the North Korean women’s football team won an important tournament, the KCTV described it won “the championship with the great Party’s [the Workers’ Party of Korea] indomitable revolutionary spirit, our people will run like a whirlwind towards revolutionary victory of the nation under the guidance of the beloved General Kim Jong-il, the Sun of the 21st century” (KCTV, September 13, 2006) (quoted

in Kim 2010)

North Korean media is also used for other political purposes, such as gradually planting a new policy or strategy in the mind of the public This can be seen in the way North Korean media paved the way to power of Kim Jong-il in 1970s – 1980s, and Kim Jong-un 20 years later (Clippinger 1981, BBC 2012) The system used code words for each time when the new leader is promoted, who was previously unknown to the public

State-owned media is instructed directly by the supreme leaders, which means the three Kins: Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il, and Kim Jong-un The gone Kim Jong-il identified himself as “The Great Teacher of Journalists” in a 170-page instruction book for pressmen published in 1983 The book’s preface dictates that Comrade Kim was “always among journalists,” and “place[d] the pressman at the zenith of happiness and glory” and could be found “constantly giving them meticulous guidance in spite of the heavy pressure of the task of leading the revolution and construction” (Barret 2013) Koh (2005) realizes that almost all articles in the Rodong Sinmun quote parables from Kim Jong-Il, when he was still in charged

Figure 2: state-owned mass media system in North Korea Source: Lee (2007)

Understandably, it is justified to consider state-owned media outlets in North Korea as propagandist tools rather than journalism as we know it Even the most famous North Korean

“journalist”, the legendary news anchor Ri Chun-hee who was given the chance to make the announcements of the deaths of the country’s most sainted leaders (Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il), did not do any course in journalism but majored in Performance art at Pyongyang University

of Theatre and Film (Chosun Ilbo 2008)

In sum, as Hwang (1992) argues, the mass media in North Korea serves as a “vehicle for political socialization” which aims to promote the party’s policy than play the role of the fourth estate of the press in countries with higher level of freedom

The bud of clandestine journalism

The door cannot be kept strictly closed forever for the North Korean regime The extremely harsh socio-economic situations within the country, particularly after the great famine in 1990s (dubbed as the Arduous March), have forced the people out of the “loving care” of the system to run for their lives A large number defected, mostly to South Korea, while many started applying modest market principles, such as trading on the black markets or smuggling goods from China into North Korea, to survive These movements have helped to usher a budding civil society in one of the most oppressed nation of the world The signal of this trend is the appearance of clandestine journalism practice, done by North Koreans, focusing stories inside the Hermit Kingdom

Since early 2000s, several independent media organizations have been launched in neighbouring countries in an effort to penetrate the North Korean public They aim to take the news out of the Hermit Kingdom as well as providing North Koreans with information which they are not heard from the official state channels These are dubbed as “media insurgents,” applying Cold War methods (Voice of America–like shortwave broadcasts in; samizdat-like info out) and new information technologies: SD chips, DVDs, CDs, e-books, recording devices, and cell phones And as with all intelligence-gathering projects, their most valuable assets are human: a network

of reporters in North Korea and China who dispatch a stream of reports, whether about the palace intrigue surrounding the choice of Kim Jong Il’s successor, or the price of flour in Wŏnsan (Boynton 2011)

The most famous name of North Korean’s clandestine media is perhaps Rimjin-gang, which was set up by North Korean defectors and Japanese journalists in 2007, under the management of a Japanese publisher, Asia Press Rimjin-gang refers to the River of Imjin, which starts from the North, crosses the demilitarized zone, and then flows into the South of Korean Peninsula

The working process of the magazine follows that rule: their undercover reporters, who are North Koreans living inside the country, conduct their reports, mostly in audios, images and video footages, then smuggle them to China Then the editors’ team travel to the Chinese – North Korean borders to receive the “materials”, whether video footages, audio, images, or accounts from the North Koreans (Rimjin-gang 2015) The magazine has 8 North Korean reporters and collaborators active inside the country and along the Chinese border zone (ibid.)

The magazine’s first goal, as stated by its editor Jiro Ishimaru, is to unveil North Korea by

“joining hands with those actually living there” (Ishimaru 2010) Started training journalism practice for North Koreans back in 2002, he believes “no one can report on a nation better than

its own people” (Ishimaru 2010)

The second goal of Rimjin-gang is to provide an inward flow of information, with small numbers

of independent Korean-language print and digital news reports, sent back to North Korea in order to make the people there aware of what happens in their own country and around the world As Mr Ishimaru argues: “the media is a kind of social infrastructure for making a democratic society I think it is necessary to fertilize North Korean society with the seed of journalism” (Yang 2007) It is, however, hard to evaluate the impacts this practice might have on North Koreans’ perception Plus, there is no concrete explanation on how Rimjin-gang can be delivered back into North Korea Rimjin-gang is a bimonthly publication

In addition to Rimjin-gang, there is another clandestine media outlet with a slightly different name: Imjin-gang The magazine was established by Choi Jin-i, a former co-operator with Jiro Ishimaru in the Rimjin-gang They parted in 2009 as Ms Choi wanted to set up a magazine which is not commercially funded and could be read by more North Koreans (Ramstad 2010) Writers of both magazines are mainly North Koreans with the political and financial ability to visit China, where they can communicate freely (ibid.) The motto of Imjin-gang goes “the Magazine Written and Read by North Koreans” Different from the Rimjin-gang, Ms Choi’s magazine concentrates on the North Korean public only and does not try to commercialize the project Their target readers are even more specific: Ms Choi revealed that the magazine wants

to focus on the intellects and public servants The magazine issues are sent to North Korean embassies and consulates around the world, through which they are transferred to addresses in North Korea The magazine’s editors hope that when the magazine is scanned for its suitability, some officials at the Ministry of State Security and other administrator will read it and gradually change their perception by fulfilling their thirst for knowledge and information (Yun-deok 2015) The workflow of Imjin-gang is similar to Rimjin-gang, except for the fact that with the former, one member of the editorial team spends more than half the year beside a river on the border between North Korea and China to meet the “reporters”, get the materials, interview and train them Imjin-gang publishes quarterly and for each publication, at least 50 copies are sent to North Korea via a third country

These two covert journalism outlets have been considered as one of the very few openly defiant