A North Korean man listens to music in a multimedia room in Pyongyang | Image: Eric Lafforgue (April 2008)
South Korea has firmly established itself as the wealthier and more powerful of the two Koreas, in particular since the end of the Cold War brought economic ruin and widespread famine to North Korea. But this has not stopped Pyongyang propagandists from looking for ways to influence their neighbors.
Early propaganda films such as 1974’s “The Fate of Keum-hee and Eun-hee” attempted to contrast the materially prosperous North with the poor, backward South, though that particular front on the ideological battlefield has long been lost.
South Korea has firmly established itself as the wealthier and more powerful of the two Koreas, in particular since the end of the Cold War brought economic ruin and widespread famine to North Korea. But this has not stopped Pyongyang propagandists from looking for ways to influence their neighbors.
Early propaganda films such as 1974’s “The Fate of Keum-hee and Eun-hee” attempted to contrast the materially prosperous North with the poor, backward South, though that particular front on the ideological battlefield has long been lost.
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Tatiana Gabroussenko obtained her PhD in East Asian Studies at the Australian National University. She is currently a professor of North Korean studies at Korea University, Seoul. Her latest book, "Soldiers on the Cultural Front: Developments in the Early History of North Korean Literature and Literary Policy," was included in the Choice magazine list of Outstanding Academic Titles of 2012.