South Korean Popular Culture and North Korea by Kim Youna;

Author:Kim, Youna;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2018-12-17T00:00:00+00:00

Comparative perspective

The development of the pirated foreign media in North Korea shows similar conditions and patterns to those of China in the 1970s and 1980s. In addition to similar political structures and economic conditions, both nations are to some extent subject to marketization. Despite tight government control, pirated foreign media culture has found ways in the lucrative informal economy to reach domestic audiences, and both governments have implicitly tolerated the black market force. Banned media goods not only provide the audiences with outside information and alternative ideas but also undermine the totalitarian control by building up the people’s social capital. Technological development has facilitated the illicit distribution and consumption of pirated media culture more effectively in today’s North Korea than 1970s–1980s China. As technological devices such as USB drives and micro SD cards help North Korean citizens evade government inspection more easily than the older technologies of VHSs and DVDs, governmental blockage of the Korean Wave media becomes futile (O’Carroll 2012; Kretchun et al. 2017). Another difference between today’s North Korea and China in the past is the motives of pirated media suppliers; while those in China were mostly driven by profit, some pirates in North Korea are driven by counter-ideology against their regime, indicating that foreign media content in North Korea is more pro-liberalization than that in China.

Would pirated foreign media culture in North Korea lead to long-term sociopolitical changes as it did in China? Considering the interplay between the informal economy, culture and technologies, it can be suggested that the impact of the Korean Wave on transforming North Korea would be relatively limited, compared to the Chinese case. First, North Koreans may not always understand the meanings of the Korean Wave media due to cultural differences (Rohrlich 2013; Ji 2016c). Even though affluent North Koreans enjoy K-pop music, they pay more attention to the lyrics and the vocals than the singers’ appearance (Lee 2015a). Psy’s “Gangnam Style,” for instance, is puzzling to some North Koreans because they are unfamiliar with an urban lifestyle. Cultural discrepancies may occur because North Koreans are weary of the ills of capitalism reflected in the Korean Wave, such as inequality, materialism, and moral decadence (Kim 2014; Lankov 2014).

Second, the Chinese regime differs from the North Korean regime; the government in a closed society needs to first initiate political and economic liberalization for substantial change of the society (Rozumilowicz 2002). China officially adopted economic liberalization in the late 1970s with the support of the central and provincial leaders. The top leadership also voluntarily limited their own power by setting up institutions such as term limits, restoring meritocracy in leadership recruitment, and giving local governments more authority. The North Korean government, despite emerging economic liberalization “from below,” shows no significant sign of providing the political environment or determination for liberalization. The different stances towards economic liberalization explain why the governments implicitly tolerate the pirated foreign media in the informal economy. In China, the government’s focus on economic growth via liberalization brought about negative social issues including unemployment and income inequality.

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