SEOUL – North Koreans are increasingly turning to outside radio broadcasts for news and information, following weeks of increasingly hyperbolic rhetoric produced by North Korean state media.

The seriousness with which outside observers took Pyongyang’s aggressive rhetoric notably declined as the “crisis” continued into April, fizzling out over the last few weeks and, according to reports by Seoul-based website the Daily NK, a similar process occurred domestically.

“No matter what the Party shouts about, the people just don’t believe a word of it. More and more people are listening to external radio and spreading word of its contents, and that kind of information is gaining currency,” an unnamed source from within North Korea told the Daily NK.

Throughout what outside media outlets dubbed the “crisis” on the Korean peninsula, Pyongyang strived hard to create a war-like atmosphere domestically, putting its military on high alert; conscripting university students into short-term military exercises; and describing the outbreak of war as “imminent.”

“People who know about international news and are willing to disseminate the information are popular, too, so more and more people are listening to radio now,” the Hamhung-based source said.

Domestic tensions subsided a week or two before international media started to focus its attention elsewhere. In the weeks running up to April 15th (Kim Il Sung’s birthday), farmers had commenced spring planting, preparations for Kim Il Sung’s birthday celebrations were well underway, and nuclearization and economic development were being pushed forward as a “parallel” strategy by Pyongyang’s parliament.

“In the absence of the Internet, radio remains the best way to send information into the DPRK because it’s the only technology that can cover the entire country,” Martyn Williams of North Korea Tech and NK NEWS Pro said. “Broadcasts are being scaled back to other parts of the world because people have largely moved on from shortwave broadcasting, but that’s not the case with North Korea.”

Many North Koreans keep easily-concealed short wave radios in their homes to secretly listen to outside broadcasts. Officially sanctioned radios are pre-tuned or restricted to state frequencies, and are periodically inspected by the authorities for signs of tampering. Some citizens therefore keep an extra, secret, device in their homes.

“Short wave radios are perfect because receiving the information is completely anonymous. Unlike the Internet, radio doesn’t require any feedback or signals from listeners. They just switch on their set and receive broadcasts over the air, which makes it much more difficult to track listeners,” Williams said.

The BBC is currently considering plans to launch a version of its World Service that will broadcast in Korean to both North and South Korea. With the absence of free media in the North, and an often controversially biased trend to favor the government line in media outlets in the South, the prospect of a BBC Korean service is gaining popularity among campaigners.

“If the taxi driver in Gwangju, the apple farmer in Daegu, the businessman or student in Seoul and the ordinary people of Pyongyang, Hamhung, and Rason are all listening to reliable, objective information from the same radio station delivered in their native tongue, what better way of bringing the ‘minjok’ [Korean people] together can there be than that?” Chris Green, International Affairs Manager of the Daily NK told NK NEWS in February.

North Koreans are increasingly turning to outside radio broadcasts for news and information, following weeks of increasingly hyperbolic rhetoric produced by North Korean state media.