North Korean Policy Elites - Defense Technical Information Center

with a fool for a president; 102 any information coming from the United States may be viewed as
coming from a source of low credibility.
The true beliefs of the North Korean masses and elite are difficult to judge from their
behavior. No opposition voices are heard (although some anti-regime graffiti have been reported),
nor is there any public criticism of Kim Jong-il or his father. This absence of criticism may
indicate public apathy or support, but it may also mask private dissension. The abrupt fall of
communism in the former Soviet bloc demonstrated that underneath the surface of society,
people - and not just the dissident intellectuals - held their governments in contempt. No
intellectual dissent has been detected in North Korea, but it may exist, buried more deeply than it
was in Eastern Europe.
The Kim regime has taken measures to prevent its people from receiving and believing
foreign communications, especially those coming from the United States. As the country opens
itself slightly to foreigners, a “mosquito net” of censorship has been erected to let some
information in while preventing unwanted influences from endangering the mental health of the
people. 103 Another measure to combat outside communications is the use of “inoculation,” 104
whereby North Korean propagandists contrast an idealized picture of American life with the
harsher reality in order to prevent the audience from believing everything they hear and see
about the United States. For example, America’s ideal of freedom of ideas is criticized on the
grounds that because the “ruling class” controls the media, “unlimited freedom [is ensured only]
for the ideological activities to champion and propagate the bourgeois ideas which represent its
class interests.” 105
In the last quarter century, work on communication and persuasion has gone beyond the
classical studies that manipulated source, message, medium, and audience factors to probe how
people process information. One of the newer cognitive theories is the theory of cognitive
dissonance, which is especially relevant to the case of people living in a country with no freedom
of expression. The North Korean elite, who generally know more about their country and the
102 According to Yonhap, on March 12, 2002 a DPRK literary journal published a crude poem beginning, “Dear
notorious U.S. President Bush/You are such a fool,/ but a real stylish fool.” FBIS KPP20020313000018. President
Bush has been called much worse in the North Korean press.
103 A German visitor quotes Kim Il-sung as using the term “mosquito net” in regard to the opening of the Najin-
Sonbong foreign trade zone. The term occasionally appears in the North Korean press. For Kim’s original quote,
see Hy-Sang Lee, North Korea: A Strange Socialist Fortress. Westport, CN: Praeger, 2001, p. 178.
104 The idea of attitude inoculation was introduced by William McGuire, who began thinking about the concept after
reports of brainwashing during the Korean War. The original source is William McGuire and D. Papageorgis,
“The Relative Efficacy of Various Types of Prior Belief Defense in Producing Immunity against Persuasion,”
Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, Vol. 62 (1961), pp. 327-337.
105 “Deceptive Nature of Freedom of Ideology Chanted by Imperialists,” KCNA report on a Nodong Sinmun article
of June 29, 1995; transcribed by FBIS-EAS-95-125 on June 29, 1995, p. 33 (FTS19950629000451).
III-35