Why are all these North Korea articles/videos always so interesting to us? Every time one of them is posted I find myself glued to the computer screen and then looking up more information on Wikipedia for hours. I must have seen like 10 documentaries on it by now, but it's interesting every time.
Be careful not to assume from this video that propaganda primarily only happens in far-off dictatorships like North Korea. Propaganda is more useful in a democratic society because as Chomsky says, "If you don't behave in a dictatorship, they'll just bludgeon you over the head." To control the population in democratic societies, governments and lobbyists use propaganda to control the masses through an "artificially created public sentiment" (<a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9F07E5D8143FE633A25755C0A9609C946296D6CF" rel="nofollow">http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9F07E5D8143FE...</a>).<p>Modern propaganda originated during World War I under Woodrow Wilson. Americans were isolationists and didn't want any part of the war; however, the US government wanted to enter the war so it created the Creel Commission (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_on_Public_Information" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_on_Public_Information</a>) to influence public opinion towards entering the war.<p>The Creel Commission was so effective that it was able to turn Americans from isolationists into German-hating warmongers in only 6 months. The Creel Commission operated for 2 years, and it is where the modern PR industry emerged from.<p>But this was almost 100 years ago, and the government, lobbyists, and PR agencies have been perfecting it ever since. We are the propaganda experts, not North Korea.<p>A few weeks ago, I formed an open-source project called "The Propaganda Project" (<a href="http://www.propagandaproject.org/" rel="nofollow">http://www.propagandaproject.org/</a>) to build a Web service that will enable people to identify and catalog instances of propaganda techniques (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_techniques" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_techniques</a>) used in mass media to effectively pull back the curtain so that it loses its persuasive effect.<p>For example, let's take the three 60-minute cable news programs competing at 5 PM -- Glenn Beck (Fox News), Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer (CNN), and Hardball with Chris Matthews Hardball (MSNBC).<p>The Web service will make it easy for people to identify and catalog instances of propaganda techniques used during each episode. Someone might see and tag in online video that Glenn Beck used a "glittering generality" at 1 min and 12 seconds into the show and an "appeal to fear" at 1 min 33 seconds. Someone else might see that Chris Matthews used a "red herring" at 1 min 20 seconds and Wolf Blitzer used a "quote out of context" at 1 min 40 seconds.<p>My premise is that there is a finite number of shows and an abundance of politically-passionate people that love pointing out the other-side's propaganda. Over the course of an hour-long program, people might be able to identify 30 or more instances of propaganda techniques used in each program.<p>If the service becomes popular, and people use it to check to see if their favorite shows are using propaganda or if the other-side is, the networks won't want to be known as the networks with the most propagandist shows so they will force the shows' producers to reduce the ratio of propaganda per episode.<p>This is a brand new project that's just getting off the ground so please give me your feedback, and let me know if you want to help.
It's almost funny, I guess in a sad way, to watch this and realize that every person you see in the film is planted (including those in the backgrounds), the young actors carefully picked, every shot is framed to make NK <i>not</i> seem like the giant hole it actually is. It's no more real than a hollywood production.
On a fairly unrelated note, I really wish Al Jazeera was watchable in the states as a proper news channel. I'd prefer to watch it than streaming web video -- I might actually watch TV news again! But I think it'd bring some well-needed balance to what else we see on the news (even including BBC).
This video kind of makes you wonder if people are really saying these things cause they mean it or if they are just being watched and have to act a certain way to reap the benefits of being a firm party supporter. Benefits like living in Pyongyang and actually having food and shelter. I feel that it's probably the latter in like 99% of cases.<p>My father in communist Poland wasn't able to do the research he wanted at his university at Poland cause he wasn't in the party. He cursed out his professor and called him a communist and got kicked out and had to transfer schools. Calling someone out as a communist was a slur against them because those reaping in party benefits were seen as betraying their own country.<p>I feel like it's a similar case in NKorea. You have to act that way cause your neighbors will tell the authorities about any signs of disloyalty and the family will disappear (into a re-education camp.) I think that's why these people on the videos when they are interviewed really chose their words carefully and make anything they say an attempt to glorify the dear leader. Their eyes give them away though. I feel like everyone is aware of it -- the conditions in their country vs the west, but they live in fear of expressing their own opinions so they just shut up and go about their lives.
The segment during the dance class was... weird. With the exception of the mention of the great leader, it's almost completely identical to something you'll see over here. Right down to "I need to go on a diet".
This video's available in 720p on Al Jazeera's YouTube channel: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmzPsJfkWjA" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmzPsJfkWjA</a>