It's been more than a decade since Kim Jong Un officially ascended to the position of supreme leader of North Korea. In that time, many changes have been made to North Korean society. Various changes have also been attempted in the field of television broadcasting. Under Kim Jong Un's regime, North Korean broadcasting has become increasingly characterized as "mass media," emphasizing breaking news and popularity, diversifying platforms, and making technological advances.
This study examines the theories and characteristics of TV broadcasting in the Kim Jong un era and analyzes the discourse produced by KCTV and the context surrounding it from the perspective of cultural studies. By doing so, it analyzes the interaction between the regime's political actions and broadcast discourse, and the political and social aspects of how broadcasting generates and disseminates certain ideologies within North Korean society and reinforces the ruling ideology of the Kim Jong un regime. It also examines the function of broadcasting in the regime's political behavior, focusing on KCTV's role in weather disaster broadcasts in preparation for typhoons and the spread of COVID-19. Based on this review, the mechanisms by which the Kim Jong un regime produces, reproduces, maintains, and reinforces discourse to maintain its regime and strengthen its hegemony, and the role of KCTV in this process, are examined while paying attention to the historical and social context.
A comparison of North Korea's broadcasting theory under Kim Jong un with that of Kim Jong il shows that the basic mission and task of the media is essentially the same under Kim Jong un: to promote the main idea and maintain power. However, in order to accomplish these goals, it suggests that the media should break out of its rigid mindset and conduct its ideological work in a novel way. Calling for "innovation and change" in the media.
In terms of "changing the characteristics of the media," the report specifically examines the attempts of TV broadcasting in the Kim Jong un era to rethink and strengthen its characteristics as a modern media outlet through analysis of broadcasting technology, presentation, and content. The political and social implications of this are analyzed, with the aim of maintaining and prolonging the media's influence over the people by strengthening the popularity of TV and rethinking the media's original public role.
On the other side of the change is the aspect of "strengthening the role of propaganda" as a task demanded by the regime. First, through an analysis of the programming of KCTV, we observe the changes in the programming of propagandistic programs to confirm that the mission and task of KCTV as a means of propaganda has not changed. Then, against the backdrop of typhoons, floods, and the COVID-19 crisis, we examine the ways in which KCTV's disaster broadcasting function worked and contributed to the implementation of disaster response policies by leaders, the party, and the government by analyzing the content, presentation, and organization of broadcast content. After identifying the semantic structures and meaning-making processes of the dominant discourse, the intentions of power involved in this process, and the spread of ideology as an effect, I observe that these broadcast attempts ultimately aimed to spread the image of the Kim Jong un regime's "leader and party protecting the people," and to connect the people to a shared experience of being part of the socialist extended family and a renewed sense of social solidarity. Based on these cases, this paper analyzes the will to power implicit in the intertextuality of TV texts that are constructed according to political interests and social and cultural contexts.
The study analyzes that KCTV's attempts to strengthen the propagandistic role of TV broadcasting in the Kim Jong un era, as well as its efforts to change the nature of TV broadcasting as a medium to increase its popularity in order to play a more effective political role, are ultimately aimed at maintaining and prolonging the regime's political dominance.
카카오톡
페이스북
블로그