North Koreans dance to celebrate new housing licences
Credit: Kim Won Jin/AFP
North Korea is expanding its propaganda repertoire beyond austere military parades broadcast on state television to project a more modern image through slickly produced YouTube videos.
Echo of Truth, a YouTube channel fronted by Un A, a young, sophisticated woman speaking fluent English, takes the viewer to a youth concert, a pizza restaurant, a funfair and the supermarket to break the traditional overseas narrative of North Korea as a threatening nuclear-armed authoritarian state.
The messaging is clear – in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, life is normal, relatable to a Western audience, and residents are frequently having a good time.
The series is strong on foodie content, with Un A taking a tour of her favourite restaurants and dropping into the well-stocked Taesong department store after work to pick up some butter biscuits as a treat.
In one video, the camera zooms in on laughing faces, and foreign tourists, enjoying rollercoasters and stomach-dropping rides at the Kaeson Youth Park, while in an August broadcast, Un A excitedly heads off to a concert in the park. “I didn’t realise how many songs we had about young people!” she exclaims.
North Korea is trying to evolve its global image beyond that of a war-mongering state
Credit: Kim Won Jin/AFP
But the channel, although it departs from the staid missives of state-run newspapers, also serves often as a political loudspeaker for the government, and a rebuttal of Western media reports.
In February, the presenter solemnly explains from the austere location of Kim Il-sung square how not a single person has contracted Covid-19 because the government “took very decisive and very reasonable measures.”
In April, she attempts to rebut foreign headlines about the dire state of the reclusive state’s economy by popping into the supermarket again to interview women shopping there about whether they have noticed any price hikes.
They all stress the opposite. “I noticed some products got even cheaper,” responds one customer in a lane of processed snacks.
But despite its upbeat view of North Korean life, the channel, which now has more than 35,000 subscribers, never manages to shake its Potemkin vibe in a totalitarian country known to harshly punish dissent, and where beyond the boundaries of central Pyongyang, nearly 60% of the population is “food insecure.”
Kim Jong-un likes to portray himself as benevolent
Credit: AFP
Many of the videos reflect sights and experiences in and around the capital city that restricted groups of visitors are permitted to see.
North Korea experts have also noted that the YouTube project fits into a more general evolution of the national propaganda machine, under a millennial leader, that is trying to upgrade its messaging platforms as international media gradually manages to seep into the country.
Observers of state media were surprised recently to see coverage of devastating typhoons adopt a more international format, with correspondents reporting from floodzones and deviating from strict approved scripts.
Rachel Minyoung Lee, a former North Korea open source intelligence analyst in the US government, told Reuters the changes reflected leader Kim Jong-un’s attempts to introduce greater transparency.
“Kim Jong-un seems to have realised early on that KCTV (state TV) needed to keep up with the times to compete with the influx of South Korean and foreign media and entertainment content, and that explains KCTV modernisation efforts,” she said.
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