[Moon-dæg] Two Takes on North Korea - Part 1

Preamble
Two Takes on North Korea - Part 1

Preamble

I've decided to change the format for Monday's entries.

Instead of a series that includes four different entries (one that lays out all the facts, one that attempts a logical approach, one that looks for "truthiness," and then one final entry that returns to logic), each four part Moon-dæg series will now be a standard length essay of 2000 words split into four parts.

Periodically, short stories and poetry cycles/mini-epic poems might also be posted, so be sure to keep reading.

All of that said, onto the first of the new format four-part series, an opinion on modern perceptions of North Korea.

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Two Takes on North Korea - Part 1

{One of the few allowed to look out from the Hermit Kingdom. Photo taken by Marcella Bona}

North Korea, from a political standpoint, is a strange remnant from the post-WWII era, and really, in some ways, the last vestige of the Cold War. The Berlin Wall fell, the USSR collapsed. Nuclear power continues to be a problem both as a source of energy and as a weapon, but it's something that nations at least have a handle on. Sanctions are in place where needed, and most countries take these sanctions seriously. Not so much North Korea, according to this Australian Federal Police (AFP) article from 21 May.

However, North Korea's recent failed rocket launch has caused it to lose face internationally. Nonetheless, and as that AFP article points out, North Korea will try again. And this persistence is in the face of more and more information coming to light about the country's regime and living standard.

Two examples of these information leaks are Guy Delisle wrote and illustrated a graphic novel called Pyongyang, all about his time working for an animation studio in the North Korean capital and Mike Kim's Escaping North Korea: Defiance and Hope in the World’s Most Repressive Country.

As it is now, North Korea is seen as a place of social backwardness, starvation, and demoralization. But there's a curious angle on this story if you go south of the North's border.

In South Korea, even in the capital of Seoul (just about 35 miles (56 km) from the border between the two Koreas) people seem almost indifferent to their Northern neighbor. In fact, it's more likely for South Koreans to express a wish for reunification in some form or another than to say that they feel hounded by a constant nagging fear.

The case that will be made over the next three Monday entries is that the disparity between the South Korean and North American view of North Korea is a lingering result of the Cold War. Not necessarily directly, but in the sense that the North American news media has wakened to the importance of finding and pleasing a target audience.

Most young people get their news from blogs, websites, or specialized channels, whereas most of those over the age of 40 get their news from television, radio, and newspapers. The old means of getting news are well aware of this demographic shift and have no intention of letting their base demographic - the Baby Boomers - lose interest in what they have to say. Thus, as a means of replicating the same kind of fear that many Boomers are familiar with from the cold war conventional news media try to play up the fear angle in their coverage of North Korea.

The next two entries in this series will look at the tone and style of coverage of the Bombardment of Yeonpyeong, and through these investigations attempt to show that conventional North American media spins such stories for their fear effect.

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