A New Phase of Dissemination of South Korean Visual Media in North Korea in the Era of COVID-19 Pandemic: Oppositional Subculture Among Youth Between Crackdown and Irreversibility
A New Phase of Dissemination of South Korean Visual Media in North Korea in the Era of COVID-19 Pandemic: Oppositional Subculture Among Youth Between Crackdown and Irreversibility

Summary/Abstract: The viewing of South Korean-produced visual media, whose dissemination in North Korea continues since the 1990s, appears to be irreversible, even in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, North Korean youth, called either the generation of Jangmadang or Yellow Wave, have gone beyond possessors who enjoy South Korean visual media on their own, and have become prime movers of sharing and selling it through black markets. In the series of flows, the North Korean regime is setting its sights on them. In other words, from the end of last year, the North Korean regime has enacted laws targeting the spread of South Korean visual medias and reorganized the Workers’ Party of North Korea, and crackdown, surveillance and punishment based on these have been implemented more intensely. In addition, there have been widely shared anti-Korean Wave propaganda videos in North Korea, and speeches, wherein the leader Kim Jong-un named Korean Wave a “malignant cancer” in a very unusual way. Furthermore, the North Korean regime has made a series of strongpoints to halt the penetration of the Korean Wave, or capitalist ideology, in their view, by doubly taking advantage of blocking movement between regions inside North Korea, as well as along the border with neighbouring China since last year to cut off the spread of COVID-19. This study examines the trends of the spread of the Korean Wave, focussing on youth in North Korea in the era of the pandemic. To that end, this study analyses the last two years of anti-Korean-Wave laws in North Korea, propaganda videos, Kim Jong-un’s discourses, South Korean and international publications, and interview video clips with North Korean settlers in South Korea. In doing so, this study sheds light on the recent phase of oppositional subcultures against the regime during the pandemic. In conclusion, this study discusses the reversibility and irreversibility of the South Korean Wave as a subculture of youth, passing through the crackdown measures during the pandemic.

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