Broadcasts targeting North Korea can be effective in fostering alternative power bases to incite change, according to the activity’s major proponents.

Someone intimately involved in the field, Kim Seung Chul of North Korea Reform Radio told a debate event held by the Association of Broadcasters for North Korea at the National Human Rights Commission in Seoul this afternoon, “We need to create the political and social conditions for potential leaders of change to step forward and begin the reform process through these broadcasts toward North Korea.”

He added, “North Korea can change gradually, and then at the crucial time the broadcasts’ effects will appear. In this sense, private broadcasts towards North Korea, viewed in terms of cost-effectiveness, can make a huge difference.”

“Broadcasting’s role is to create the energy internally in North Korea for that leadership faction, and then to provide a second energy; the social environment for regime change. By integrating these two energies we will be able to actualize democracy through reform and opening,” he emphasized.

Kim even asserted that this process could save trillions of won in reconstruction costs at the time of systemic change.

In particular, “Due to the nature of the regime, the effects of broadcasting cannot be seen right away. However, their role is, over a long period of time, to lead the creation of an environment for regime change and accumulate energy for change among Party cadres, intellectuals and college students.”

Kim Sung Min, who runs another such radio station, Free North Korea Radio, said, “All flyering, broadcasting, video media and such that are helping the revival of the North Korean people’s right to know should be untethered and invigorated. A new style of information environment must be created, not tied to the old ways.”

He added, “For example, if the government is determined to do so, a satellite communications system which can make it possible to view analog TV or radio and video would not just be realizable, it would be highly effective.