Experts from South Korea drew attention to the increase in the number and quality of YouTube videos from North Korea. But at the same time, they noted a lot of contradictions in them, because of which the videos look like clumsily directed propaganda. Its goal is to show life in the DPRK as attractive as possible, which is not true.
Researcher Park Sung-chul from the South Korean Center for Human Rights noted the staged nature of most of the videos. For example, in one video, a visitor to a water park splashes in a pool with artificial waves. The pool is real, but its operation requires a lot of energy, and in the DPRK, only a quarter of the population has access to electricity. Therefore, the pool is turned on only on weekends, for high-ranking visitors, or for shooting advertising.
In other commercials, actors make obvious mistakes — for example, showing knowledge of popular contemporary Western literature, despite the fact that the country has a strict restriction on access to Western press and content. The video shows things that are common to the rest of the world, which are rare or scarce for the people of North Korea themselves. Ha Seung-hee, an expert on North Korea at Dongguk University, believes that the authorities of this country want to develop tourism in the post-COVID era, for which they have engaged in a new form of propaganda.
