Propaganda is widely used and produced by the government of North Korea (DPRK). Most propaganda is based on the Juche ideology and on the promotion of the Workers' Party of Korea.
The first syllable of Juche, "ju", means the man; the second syllable, "che", means body of oneself. Article 3 of the Socialist Constitution proclaims, "The DPRK is guided in its activities by the Juche idea, a world outlook centered on people, a revolutionary ideology for achieving the independence of the masses of people."
Many pictures of the supreme leaders are posted throughout the country.
Themes
Cult of personality
North Korean propaganda was crucial to the formation and promotion of the cult of personality centered around the founder of the DPRK, Kim Il Sung. The Soviet Union used propaganda to develop a cult of personality around Kim, particularly as a Korean resistance fighter, as soon as they put him in power. This quickly surpassed its Eastern European models. Instead of depicting his actual residence in a Soviet village during the war with the Japanese, he was claimed to have fought a guerrilla war from a .
Once relations with the Soviet Union were broken off, their role was expurgated, as were all other nationalists, until the claim was made that Kim founded the Communist Party in North Korea. He is seldom shown in action during the Korean War, instead, soldiers are depicted as inspired by him. Subsequently, many stories are recounted of his "on-the-spot guidance" in various locations, many of them being openly presented as fictional.
This was supplemented with propaganda on behalf of his son, Kim Jong Il. The North Korean famine of the 1990s, referred to as a "food shortage" by DPRK propaganda, produced anecdotes of Kim insisting on eating the same meager food as other North Koreans.
Propaganda efforts began for the "Young General", Kim Jong Un, who succeeded him as the paramount leader of North Korea on Kim Jong Il's death in December 2011.
Foreign relations
Early propaganda, in the 1940s, presented a positive Soviet–Korean relationship, often depicting Russians as maternal figures to childlike Koreans. As soon as relations were less cordial, they were expurgated from historical accounts. The collapse of the USSR, without a shot, is often depicted with intense contempt in sources not accessible to Russians.
Americans are depicted particularly negatively. They are presented as an inherently evil race, with whom hostility is the only possible relationship. The Korean War is used as a source for atrocities, less for the bombing raids than on charges of massacre. June 25 is considered the start of "Struggle Against US Imperialism Month" (informally called "Hate America Month" in the U.S. media), which is commemorated by anti-U.S. mass rallies at Kim Il Sung Square in the capital Pyongyang. In 2018, these rallies were cancelled in what the Associated Press called "another sign of detente following the summit between leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump" that same year.
Japan is frequently depicted as rapacious and dangerous, both in the colonial era and afterward. North Korean propaganda frequently highlighted the danger of Japanese remilitarization. At the same time, the intensity of anti-Japanese propaganda underwent repeated fluctuations, depending on the improvement or deterioration of Japanese-DPRK relations. In those periods when North Korea was on better terms with Japan than with South Korea, North Korean propaganda essentially ignored the Liancourt Rocks dispute. However, if Pyongyang felt threatened by Japanese–South Korean rapprochement or sought to cooperate with Seoul against Tokyo, the North Korean media promptly raised the issue, with the aim of causing friction in Japanese–ROK relations.
Friendly nations are depicted almost exclusively as tributary nations. The English journalist Christopher Hitchens pointed out in the essay "A Nation of Racist Dwarfs" that propaganda has a blatantly racist and nationalistic angle:
South Korea
South Korea was originally depicted as a poverty-stricken land which was run by harsh and cruel dictators backed by the US and where American soldiers based there shot and slaughtered Korean women and children, but by the 1990s, too much information reached North Korea to prevent their learning that South Korea had a much stronger economy and higher living standards and quality of life, including political and social freedom, and as a result, North Korean propaganda admitted to it. However, their line taken was that this had not managed to prevent their South Korean brethren from yearning for the unification of their land and of "racial-purification" of their peoples.