So far the most interesting point they have made is that these guys are smuggling in foreign media/tv and people are consuming it. The pitch is that the latest box office hits (sky fall 007 was mentioned) are the best way to influence N Korean culture. I guess I was surprised by this, but it does make more sense than trying to give them hard truth, which they would more likely reject due to their own cognitive dissonance.
This makes me wonder how our own media is manipulated to influence political movements?
Here's a simple example that most of us can probably relate to. I often read the Danish news outlets for coverage on "big" international stories. I read them a lot during the last Iraq war.
The example: when the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, and US media were saying that the "alleged photos might not be possible to obtain" I saw them a full 3 days early on Danish media before I could find them anywhere on US news.
[EDIT: My UCSC roots will really show here - check out "Manufacturing Consent" by Noam Chomsky for one perspective. And yes, it's Chomsky, so YMMV.]
People in North Korea are probably well aware about the hard truth. And also, in my opinion, it's very difficunt to create a good foreign made documentary/educational movie, which is not a propaganda itself, and is not insulting or misinformative in some way (even unintentionally).
So, it makes sense to simply share the good things the North Koreans don't have access to. It's a small improvent to their life, but it's an improvement, and it makes them happier. One of the defectors said that she never smiled in NK. They should live better, that's the objective, I think. And the persuasive power of such seemingly meaningless things is very high, actually.
> This makes me wonder how our own media is manipulated to influence political movements?
Something I've found very interesting is watching foreign news media and what they report on and some of the externals that surround that reporting...then reversing those observations to my own country's media. It's remarkable how taking that outsider's viewpoint and turning it towards your own native media can help you to understand where they're manipulative or not quite truthful with things.
In my case, my wife is from South Korea and I get constant exposure to the news (important and trivial) about her native country. There's lots of, to me, obvious political influence in South Korean news. It took a few years, but eventually I was able to convince my wife that this was happening. Of course she had some inkling that it was happening, but the various phenomenon I was pointing out to here had completely escaped her notice.
One of the most common in her country is to hide embarrassing political issues with wall to wall coverage of a recent scandal that was just "discovered" about some top-tier entertainer: it's usually a sex scandal, but it could be tax evasion or gambling issues. Those entertainers then "retire" or disappear for a couple years and inevitably stage a come back. The public's attention span is so short that the political issue is quickly forgotten while the poor singer or actor or whatever is drug through the press for a few weeks. It's very rare that a political issue will stay front and center over an inconsequential starlet's sex video.
Over the years I've come to appreciate the very deep relationship the government there has with the major production companies and broadcast networks. It's changing slowly, independent media is starting to spring up on cable networks and podcasts and such, but the overall homogeneity of South Korean pop culture means that most people will still just go to their favorite old media sources for most things anyways. The good news is that they aren't really spreading lies, just choosing to suddenly report at this very moment about something that doesn't matter at all when something that does matter is being ignored -- so they can still say they have a free press and all that.
Recent protests and firings at some of the major broadcasting companies have shown that this isn't nearly as true though.
Turning back on my country's media and I see similar tactics used. I think we're a bit more subtle about it, it's not quite the clockwork mechanism that I see in South Korea, but I think there's always some agenda to what gets covered and when. I think the government influence on major media producers here is just as deep, think about the flood of pure propaganda action movies that came out during Reagan. They're hopelessly obvious these days, but I don't remember them being such obvious propaganda back then.
These days, my wife and I play this game now when some outrageous, but largely inconsequential, news start getting played up endlessly in our respective countries. The game is called "what's really going on?" And we remind each other with this question that the game has started and we'll spend the next hour or so digging into the internet to try and figure out what embarrassing political situation is being glossed over so we can see an actress trip on stage for the 800th time, or some singer spectacularly flame out in public.
I can think of no better example of this in action then this
"The current rebellion has been led by Sen. Ted Cruz, a young fundamentalist lawmaker from the restive Texas region, known in the past as a hotbed of separatist activity."
Why shucks, that's the nicest thing anyone has said about my state in recent memory!
It's very rare that a political issue will stay front and center over an inconsequential starlet's sex video.
This sort of thing happened recently in the US with CNN placing Miley Cyrus over news from Syria, Egypt, the Snowden leaks, and probably something else even more important that I'm forgetting.
This makes me wonder how our own media is manipulated to influence political movements?