This is a great description of the colossal amount of propaganda wielded against these countries, DPRK in particular. I think fact-checking information about DPRK is particularly difficult for Westerners to do not only because of the factors you listed but also because of a high language barrier, by which I mean that Korean language proficiency is relatively uncommon outside of Korea–contrast that with a more numerous and widely distributed community of Spanish, Chinese, or Russian speakers, which increases the chances of independent fact-checking being conducted by diverse parties. Add to that South Korea’s importance as a U.S. stronghold, and the various other pressures that you listed about DPRK and why they would be reluctant to release information that could leave them open to criticism, and the West basically has a license to say whatever they want about North Korea with zero voices to the contrary. If someone suggests that Western narratives on DPRK might be inaccurate or distorted, it somehow seems to equal to endorsing every single thing that has ever happened in North Korea, real or imagined.
In relation to this I want to share a couple of Parenti quotes about propagandistic media:
Long after the specifics of a case are forgotten, or never learned, long after the case itself has been discarded by the cold war propagandists or demolished by opponents, there remains a residue of negative feeling and visceral impact that makes the next mobilization of bias that much more plausible sounding. As in any effective propaganda campaign, the appeal is to well-established emotive impressions and conditioned responses rather than to specific facts and actualities.
Here he is talking about incomplete/distorted media reports around the incident of flight KAL 007, which he makes a case for as being a U.S. spy operation, but was reported as the Soviets brutally shooting down a passenger plane unprovoked. Parenti points out that in the case of the KAL plane, one opinion poll showed that “a majority of Americans thought the government had not told the whole story about the KAL tragedy” and he notes that this reveals the limits of propaganda. However, Parenti adds, "the fact that most Americans did not unquestioningly swallow the whole story does not mean they were unaffected by it and by the daily ideological pounding of which it was a part. Not everybody bought the story, but millions did, and few could offer a coherent refutation–given what was provided by the news media." (This is from “Inventing Reality”)
This tactic is not unique to that event, or to the treatment of DPRK either, but I think DPRK is particularly vulnerable to this tactic being used against it and it’s sickening how much harm can be done to a country through this cycle that leads to ever-increasing isolation and deprivation, which then becomes the basis for further lies and distortions to further isolate and deprivate. And again, it’s wild how just pointing this out is somehow interpreted by many people as unequivocal support for every policy or action ever taken by North Korea.
This is a great description of the colossal amount of propaganda wielded against these countries, DPRK in particular. I think fact-checking information about DPRK is particularly difficult for Westerners to do not only because of the factors you listed but also because of a high language barrier, by which I mean that Korean language proficiency is relatively uncommon outside of Korea–contrast that with a more numerous and widely distributed community of Spanish, Chinese, or Russian speakers, which increases the chances of independent fact-checking being conducted by diverse parties. Add to that South Korea’s importance as a U.S. stronghold, and the various other pressures that you listed about DPRK and why they would be reluctant to release information that could leave them open to criticism, and the West basically has a license to say whatever they want about North Korea with zero voices to the contrary. If someone suggests that Western narratives on DPRK might be inaccurate or distorted, it somehow seems to equal to endorsing every single thing that has ever happened in North Korea, real or imagined.
In relation to this I want to share a couple of Parenti quotes about propagandistic media:
Here he is talking about incomplete/distorted media reports around the incident of flight KAL 007, which he makes a case for as being a U.S. spy operation, but was reported as the Soviets brutally shooting down a passenger plane unprovoked. Parenti points out that in the case of the KAL plane, one opinion poll showed that “a majority of Americans thought the government had not told the whole story about the KAL tragedy” and he notes that this reveals the limits of propaganda. However, Parenti adds, "the fact that most Americans did not unquestioningly swallow the whole story does not mean they were unaffected by it and by the daily ideological pounding of which it was a part. Not everybody bought the story, but millions did, and few could offer a coherent refutation–given what was provided by the news media." (This is from “Inventing Reality”)
This tactic is not unique to that event, or to the treatment of DPRK either, but I think DPRK is particularly vulnerable to this tactic being used against it and it’s sickening how much harm can be done to a country through this cycle that leads to ever-increasing isolation and deprivation, which then becomes the basis for further lies and distortions to further isolate and deprivate. And again, it’s wild how just pointing this out is somehow interpreted by many people as unequivocal support for every policy or action ever taken by North Korea.