"It is important for the North Korean leadership to show the people that it is fully in control of the situation," said Rachel Minyoung Lee, a senior analyst at the Open Nuclear Network in Vienna and an expert on North Korean state media. "But it is also risky for state media to create too large a disconnect between the regime’s claims and the experience of citizens," she said. "The regime lives and dies by propaganda."
"The regime has clearly learned a lot from South Korean and western Covid broadcasts," Lee added, noting the steady infiltration of foreign media into the country in past decades. "But the North Korean population has also been exposed to too many outside influences for their leaders to continue to be mythologised as God-like figures."
