[imText1]According to a recent survey of 250 North Korean defectors living either in China or South Korea conducted during the period from late 2009 to early 2010, 68% said they had access to a radio or cassette radio while living in North Korea.
Particularly given the fact that one of the findings of the research, “Media Access inside North Korea” by InterMedia, an international media research organization, showed that “intellectuals” were the primary listeners to South Korea’s anti-regime radio broadcasts, most experts agree that such broadcasts can have and are having a huge influence on North Korean society at large.
The Daily NK has met with some of the people working at the radio stations to discuss the merits of the broadcast and their goals. First off, we interviewed Kim Seung Cheol, the President of North Korea Reform Radio.
Kim states as the mission of his organization to “provide North Korea with an overall analysis of the situation on the Korean peninsula, and encourage its ruling class to make up its mind and act upon it.”
Kim stresses that the most important role foreign broadcasters like his should play is to tap into the minds of the North Korean elite.
Kim points to “radio broadcasts” as the key determinant in Eastern Europe’s mostly non-violent revolution of the late 1980s. High-level officials in Eastern European communist states had been listening to Radio Free Europe, a station that espoused liberalism and a free market economy, and this prepared them to accept the notion of change, he believes.
Kim says his goal, therefore, is to “enlighten” North Korean high-level officials with this in mind. He believes that once their thoughts have changed, they can take the initiative to work for a better North Korea. But he is also well aware that changing their thought processes may take some time.
“Radio broadcasts targeted at North Korea do not produce output in sync with input,” Kim explains. “Ordinary North Koreans just listen to such broadcasts out of a natural inquisitive instinct and a craving for the outside world, albeit despite strict control and the inherent dangers. Therefore, we should not expect to open their eyes to the world in an instant.”
“For the North Korean people to socially express or internally digest what they’ve heard over the radio, there needs to be a ‘catalyst’ of some sort,” Kim goes on. “For example, if Kim Jong Il dies and a serious leadership struggle breaks out, the people’s anti-regime awareness, strengthened by foreign radio broadcasts, is highly likely to become open public opinion. The role of North Korea Reform Radio is to raise the anti-regime awareness of North Korea’s ruling class in anticipation of such a moment.”
North Korea Reform Radio is producing and broadcasting programs with themes such as “visions and practices” and “wisdom and courage”, in order to meet this goal.
One program, “The Way of the Leader”, criticizes the rule of Kim Jong Il, Kim Jong Eun and the elite, and tells of a manner of leading that better befits the modern era; leadership that reaches out globally, and proper leadership practices for high-level North Korean officials in a rapidly changing world.
“History of Chinese Reform”, meanwhile, is a program that analyzes the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, who led China to reform.
“The program aims to convey the message that Deng Xiaoping’s leadership is valuable, and worthy of mirroring, not necessarily that North Korea ought to follow the Chinese reformist road,” Kim explains. “While the North can forge its own reformist path, the right form of leadership, as shown by Deng Xiaoping, will allow it to sustain that reform.”
At the end of the broadcasts, the station also recites the collected works of former South Korean President Park Jung Hee, compiled by journalist Jo Gap Je.
“Although Park is sometimes denounced in South Korea, his leadership, which in a very short time propelled South Korea to the doorsteps of being a developed nation, is quite astounding. Teaching his vision and leadership will also help North Korea,” Kim believes.
The station also produces DVDs that reveal the cold hard facts of the North Korean regime, and sends them north in balloons.
North Korea Reform Radio broadcasts every day from midnight to 1 AM throughout North Korea on SW7590Khz.
