Socialist Media vs. Capitalist Media, Research Paper Example

North Korea and South Korea

From an unbiased perspective, the main goal of media is to inform people what is happening in the place they live. People across the world rely on the internet, radio, television, newspapers, and magazines to give them a clearer idea of what is occurring both locally and across the world. Although people depend on these sources of news, it is important to understand nearly all forms of media is biased and reflects the opinions of the people who compile the stories. In the United States, people consider media to be the fourth branch of government as a result of this. Even though media in the country typically reports news as it actually occurs, the reporters incorporate either liberal or conservative ideas into the story that are used to persuade the audience to have a specific viewpoint regarding the event. As such, media is a useful tool to convince the public to have a certain idea of what is occurring. While people in the United States use media to their advantage, countries around the world also make use of this concept, and sometimes to greater extremes. In communist and socialist countries for example, leaders use media mainly to demonstrate the power of their ruler and every form of media is tightly regulated by the ruler. This allows the citizens of the countries with these type of governments to have an increased feeling that their ruler is doing the right thing in world politics and works hard to keep them safe. Meanwhile, capitalist and democratic media is guided mostly by the interests of business people and consumers; people typically receive the types of news that they want to hear.

Socialist and capitalist governments typically have different messages they wish to deliver to their people through the media. Socialist governments have a greater control over the specific messages that are broadcast, while capitalist governments have a lesser control. Despite this, both governmental systems are able to use the media to their advantage. In “Power, money, and media: Communication patterns and bureaucratic control in cultural China”, author Jinquan Li discusses the relationship between socialist media and control. Although this situation discusses socialism in China, the concept of control can be applied to the North Korean government. Before a socialist government is implemented, people have a free range over the media; there are many privately issued newspapers that are printed and distributed by individuals who are free to discuss their opinions (Li 152). As the socialist government takes over however, private newspapers begin to lose government subsidies and are not able to survive without assistance. Furthermore, this has allowed “party” controlled and “official” press to become the dominant newspapers that people read and subscribe to. Overtime, the family produced papers are unable to exist because there is no money to keep them in business and people will completely switch to reading the party controlled papers and viewing their related news sources. Even though the leader of North Korea has the power to completely remove any source of news that was not released by him and his affiliates, socialism allows for the natural degradation of these sources and little effort is required to be put into this process.

As such, the purpose of socialist media is to cover up the country’s negative state of affairs and convince its residents that all is well. In “Untold Story: The Media in China and North Korea”, the author describes the current state that North Koreans are currently living in. Although the people living in North Korea are living in a serious state of disease and famine, the people who live there are blind to these problems because their leaders protect them from this knowledge in the media (Ali?o?lu 9). It may seem strange that these people are blind to their situation, but it is important to understand that media is one of the main forms of communications that unites people. Since people living in North Korea cannot easily communicate with their neighbors in faraway provinces, they typically believe that the problems they are having are isolated within their individual community and will soon pass as a consequence of government intervention. The Korean Central News Agency or KNCA is the authority that is responsible for regulating the media in North Korea. The main job of this agency is to prevent foreign journalists from filming in the country and blocking their news reports, censoring news stories to be in line with what the dictator wants to be heard or excluded, to present North Korea as an ideal place to live compared to other nations, and to emphasize the glory and authority of the dictator and his supporters (Il Sung, 1966).

On the other hand, capitalist media reflects the opinions of the citizens to a greater extent. Since this form of media is run by the people for the people, these news reports contain many different opinions that reflect the unique thoughts of those who gather and report the news stories. As a consequence, capitalist media more effectively educates the public about the state of the world. Although capitalist media is concerned with local news stories, many news stations also report world politics. Since South Korea is a republic, their government prefers that their people have access to information around the world. Therefore, South Koreans are able to form their own opinions about what goes on in the news and they are less persuaded by their government concerning what they should or shouldn’t believe.

Just as the dictators in North Korea uses socialist media to promote their government and country, South Korea’s republic government does not have this power. Despite this however, it is important to note that the South Korean news isn’t completely unbiased. Unlike the United States, South Korea has a multi-party system and the news sources that people typically trust as fact could be biased by members of these parties. Although there were about eight parties that ran for the last presidential election in total, the ones with the most political power are currently the Grand National Party, United New Democratic Party, Independent Party, Creative Korea Party, and the Democratic Labor Party (National Election Commission). Depending on the affiliation that leaders of these parties have with the teams that produce news, there may be some level of bias in favor of their politics. However, it is important to understand that this type of political persuasion is entirely different from North Korean politics because it doesn’t dictate what people see and hear, it just provides recommendations for beliefs and ideas.

Since North Korea and South Korea have significantly different governments, it is useful to determine the differences in media between the two countries as a reflection of the difference between capitalist and socialist media. It was previously stated that the primary purpose of media in North Korea is for Kim Jong-un, the dictator of North Korea, to utilize the media to spread messages to his people. To fully understand socialist media, it is essential to determine which types of media he uses to spread messages to his people and identify what he says in these messages. In addition, a similar analysis should be conducted to study capitalist media in terms of how the government of South Korea, particularly president Park Guen-hye, uses the media to communicate with the inhabitants of his country.

When analyzing the media of North Korea, it is first important to note that the western world is unable to retrieve a large percentage of the broadcasts distributed to the community. It is interesting to note that on Thursday July 25^th however, the dictator opted to speak in front of world media in Pyongyang (Sky News). The allowance of the media to have access to a speech given by Kim Jong-un came as a surprise to many of them because the country usually wishes to hide its status from outsiders. However, it is not surprising that the province of Pyongyang was chosen for this press conference because it is one of the wealthier cities and only North Koreans that are able to demonstrate that they are fully loyal to the government are allowed to live there. Sky News’ presence at this press meeting demonstrated how tightly North Korean media is regulated. When the reporters arrived at the meeting place, they were “assigned two so-called guides”. The intention of these guides are to monitor what the press is recording and saying, and the team is made to involve two people so if one accidentally let’s something slip that shouldn’t the other can prevent this from happening. They were also responsible for telling the reporters where they were able to go and who they would be able to speak to. As a consequence, it is clear that the type of reporting allowed in North Korea is extremely limited. The messages that the international press was able to release on the conference was therefore very slim and presented country as one that was very well put together with many citizens who were dedicated to their ruler.

Since we are unable to access much of the television and radio news presented in North Korea, a useful alternative would be to resort to their online news website, http://www.kcna.co.jp/. This website is unique in that it is regulated directly by the Korean Central News Agency of Democratic People’s Republic of Korea so the information on here comes directly from Kim Jong-un and his authority. The website itself is less extensive than one we would imagine as many countries main news website and the design seems very outdated. The main options for website access are provided at the top of the page and include “home”, “past news”, “Introduction to KCNA”, and “e-mail”. It is interesting to note that the version of the KCNA website that we are able to view in other countries is somehow different than the website available in North Korea, because if the “e-mail” option is selected, it provides the e-mail address [email protected], which suggests that it is intended mainly for English speaking people (Song). Furthermore, the news website has a paragraph long “Introduction to KCNA” section that seems primarily aimed at foreigners; one would expect that any North Korean citizen should know what the KCNA is because it is their primary news source. This message section is brief and seems to have been translated from Korean due to the usage of grammar and punctuation. It reads, “KCNA The Korean Central News Agency is the state-run agency of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. It speaks for the Workers’ Party of Korea and the DPRK government. It was founded on December 5, 1946. It is located in the capital city of Pyongyang. It has branches in provincial seats and in some foreign countries. News is transmitted to other countries in English, Russian, and Spanish.” Although countries outside of North Korea are aware that the news on this website stems directly from the government, the website tries to make it seem that it somehow represents people all over North Korea. Since the Workers’ Party of Korea and the DPRK government are essentially the same thing because they are the party of the dictator however, the news articles on the website are meant mainly to provide useful information and political agenda to the citizens of the country. The website continues by stating, “The KCNA is in charge of uniform delivery of news and other information to mass media of the country, including newspapers and radios. It develops the friendly and cooperative relations with foreign news agencies.” This last statement is ironic considering the fact that many foreign news agencies report the inaccessibility to North Korean news. Furthermore, the existence of this website is proof that we are unable to view all of the information or a modified version of the information that the North Koreans living within the country are able to receive. This further reflects the idea that Kim Jong-un uses the media to have complete control over the ideas that are presented to the rest of the world about his country, to limit knowledge of current events within his own nation, and to use this limited knowledge of current events to ensure the loyalty of his people.

An additionally interesting fact on the KCNA website is that it is hosted at a .jp web domain. The bottom of the website states that, “This home page is provided by Korea News Service (KNS) in Tokyo. Re-use of any material on this home page without credit to Korea News Service (KNS) is prohibited.” Although this doesn’t provide much information about the intent of the news group itself, it is interesting that the news is hosted on a server outside of North Korea. Potential reasons for this may be to ensure that the information that the North Korean people receive is properly filtered and to determine a reaction from people living in an ally country before deciding how to screen this information, although it is difficult to confirm that this is the intent of this feature.

The most interesting features of the website are the specific news articles that it discusses. Some articles provide information that one would consider to only be published on a slow news day in countries in the United States. In “Trees Planted at Arboretum of Kumsusan Palace of Sun”, three small paragraphs are used to inform the public that the trees were planted, the types of trees that were planted, and who helped plant the trees. Although this is a simple news story that doesn’t amount to much, it reminds the readers that all is well in their world. Since the palace is having more trees planted, it must be doing well. In addition, this article emphasizes how centered on the government socialist news sources are; a capitalist paper in the United States would be unlikely to publish an article stating that trees were planted near the White House and if such a story had been written, very few people would read it (Li).

A second article posted on the KCNA website reflects the government’s opinion of the United States. The article, “U.S. Slammed for Blocking Resumption of Six-Party Talks with Unreasonable Preconditions: Spokesman” provides an unclear view of what the country is actually upset about in terms that someone who lives outside of North Korea could understand, although it is clear that they express dislike for the country. According to the North Korean press, “the six-party talks aim at removing the root cause of the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula and denuclearizing the whole of the peninsula in the spirit of respect for sovereignty and equality”. The article uses words like “absurd”, “not filled the commitments”, “no interest”, “sleight of hand”, and other negative words to make the United States’ involvement in this topic seem even worse than it is. It is also important to note that the topic of this article could have been completely fabricated and used mostly as propaganda so that if the dictator decides to do anything against the United States, he will have public support. United States news has reported little on this topic since the death of Kim Jong-il and although there are likely some form of negotiations going on between our two governments, it isn’t something that should be emphasized until a decision is made. Information that makes this article appear fake is the lack of the specificity of the arguments made. The United States is blamed for something overall and no particular members of the government are discussed as having played a negative role in the discussion. In addition, no direct quotes or dates are used. Although this article could be based on truth, it is difficult to verify this based on how it was written. The fact that North Korea actively posts articles that make the United States seem bad emphasizes the fact that the government uses the media to its advantage. One of the main goals of this article is to make the North Korean government seem superior and to criticize Americans. Although the article directly discusses a situation in politics between the two nations, it uses the article to make their form of government seem superior to America’s democracy. This seems to be a continuing theme in all KCNA articles that discuss international affairs.

The first major important difference between the socialist media of North Korea and the capitalist media of South Korea is that North Korea only has one major online news source and South Korea has several. This is mainly due to the fact that North Korean media is regulated by the government and South Korean media is regulated by the people. Although there are many internet news sources to analyze, the Korea Times will be used as the primary source of information to examine capitalist media. Once the Korea Times website is accessed, one could note a clear difference in how the news is portrayed. Firstly, the website is hosted on South Korea’s own server, which is indicated by the website URL: http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/. In addition, the website has many images associated with both news stories and advertisements where the North Korean news website did not. Lastly, there are more news stories in general and they fall into more topics, including “people”, “national”, “money”, “tech”, “culture”, “sports”, “opinion”, “world”, “issues”, and “community”. Tabs that include “opinion” and “community” emphasize that this website appreciates input from people all over South Korea, not just those who are professional reporters. This is the extreme opposite of the North Korean website because it was clear that all articles were government issued and approved, which limited the types of stories told, the number of articles, and how things are said. In contrast, the South Korean website appears to present news from a broad range of people who are permitted to have freedom of speech.

The types of stories that appear on the news website are also different. While some of the stories are published in Korean, the American reader is able to translate the website into English using browser features. Since all of the words translate smoothly, it is likely that the website itself allowed this feature in order to ensure that people who speak different languages and live in many different countries would be able to access the news. This idea emphasizes the freedom of reporting; the main goal of South Korean and capitalist reporting is to release information to whoever would be interested in accessing it. Furthermore, South Korean reporting demonstrates that capitalist reporters are able to criticize their governments and various policies that they may uphold.

In the article, “50 students plan to file lawsuit over CSAT question”, students show that they believe that a question on their high school aptitude test was unfair because the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation (KICE), the government agency responsible for creating the test questions and answers, picked the wrong choice as the correct one. The students recognized this and worried that this would impact their exam scores, filed a lawsuit. Stories like this emphasize the importance of media in capitalist culture. It emphasizes the idea that people are able to recognize things as unfair and act out against them and persuades others in similar situations to do so. Even though the KICE is a government institution, capitalism recognizes that they could occasionally make mistakes, which is why the court system is in place. Ultimately, the court will decide whether the students or KICE was correct and justice will be served. Something like this would never happen in North Korea. The socialist media always portrays the government as being correct and if an article like this was released the leader would appear weak and the regime would weaken. In contrast, capitalist media uses its reports to shape the government, which works in this situation because the goal of the government is to please the people, not the other way around.

A second article on the Korea Times website is entitled “Banks’ overseas expansion spurred on” and emphasizes the true value of capitalism in South Korean society. Free trade is an essential component of what makes the country economically successful, so it isn’t surprising that some reporters would be concerned with banks and their overseas expansions. The article states that, “Under the current rules, Korean banks are not permitted to own holding firms outside Korea. They are also required to have more than a 50 percent stake in an overseas subsidiary.” The article calls these rules outdated and explains that they might be changed in order to increase business. This is truly fundamental of capitalist ideals because it shows that South Korea could adapt in order to ensure that it is able to continue the free trade policies the government was built upon.

The above article shows a major difference between articles shown on the North Korean Website for several reasons. Firstly, North Korean articles were only several paragraphs long, lacked mentions of names of people involved, lacked quotations, and used many words throughout the article that aimed to persuade the reader to feel a certain way about the topic. In contrast, the banking article is many paragraphs long and quotes banking professionals and CEOs and cites their authority as evidence. It cites financial facts as evidence in the article, and although it attempts to convince us that this banking expansion is a good idea, it does so more using evidence than specific words. As a consequence, it is clear that South Korean media allows freedom of speech in their articles. An article against expansion of banking overseas would also likely provide similar information to the public but include various concepts about how this would hurt the economy. Therefore, South Korean people are able to decide their own truth about current events and politics while North Korean’s are presented with a one-sided story by their government.

Other aspects of the media differ significantly between North and South Korea due to their differing socialist and capitalistic values. Like their online website, South Korea has free access to television, radio, and other forms of communication like cell phones. South Korea is an extremely technological savvy and economically advantaged area so a majority of the population have access to their own technological equipment. This allows almost constant access to the media when wanted. On the other hand, all media in North Korea is tightly regulated by the government. The Central Broadcasting Committee of Korea is responsible for regulating all radio and television broadcasts and all forms of radios and television sets bought by North Korean citizens must be checked by and registered with this department to ensure they are set to only view North Korean stations. Furthermore, internet use is restricted to use in internet cafes, which are also tightly regulated. As a consequence, North Koreans will only hear and watch the news and information that has been approved by the dictator. As of May 2011, 60% of Pyongyang’s citizens between 20 and 50 owned a cell phone, but it is unlikely that other parts of the country do (DailyNK). Furthermore, these phones aren’t allowed internet access. These media availabilities emphasize the difference between access that countries with socialist and capitalist media allow.

Ultimately, South Korea and countries with capitalist media emphasize the value of free speech. The media is produced by the people not the government and is a way of spreading information. Meanwhile, countries like North Korea with socialist media use the media to control the portrayal of the country to foreigners and to persuade its citizens to remain loyal. It is interesting to note that the type of media, capitalist or socialist, reflects upon the freedoms of people as well. South Koreans have more consistent access to media and communications while North Koreans lack this ability. It is clear that it is useful to analyze media to understand the cultural values of a nation. It is tied in closely to the government and allows us to understand more about the people who live there.

Appendix

Percentage of Media Users in North Korea and South Korea

Works Cited

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