How media undermines truth-seeking
Ironically, with only state-controlled media, North Koreans are more critical about what they are told (Image: iStock.com/Drazen)
Having grown up in North Korea where the media is so uniformly one-sided that we hesitate to call the stories in them “news,” I was surprised last month talking with friends about South Korea’s elections just how biased we can be even when we have access to a range of free media.
It seemed to me that instead of truth-seeking, my friends were biased in line with the media they chose to read.
During the campaign, we became very familiar with candidates on the streets during rush hour, holding placards and giving speeches that highlighted certain issues and signaled their positions. We heard the same from the parties’ representatives on TV. In due course, problems we initially questioned with skepticism often turned into certainties.
My friends are quite diverse. They have different inclinations and support different parties. All expressed deep concern about the parties they didn’t like.
“What makes you think that way?” I asked.
“Don’t you watch the news?” they replied.
I noticed then that their mistrust and points of criticism came from the media. It seems ironic that they had serious criticisms about parties but hadn’t checked out what the parties themselves said. Instead, they strengthened their convictions by selectively listening to what they wanted to hear.
I’m curious about this issue, not so much from the point of view of political opinion, but in terms of the way we consume media.
It’s no doubt that we live in a time of rapid change. Things once unimagined or considered fantastical have become part of daily life.
Perhaps the most marked difference between the analog and digital worlds lies in the sheer amount of information and the speed of its transmission.
In the analog world, information is scarce, and transmission is slow. This means that being the first to access new information is crucial.
In North Korea, for example, the idea of a community taking action centered around information disseminators is seen as a challenge to the regime’s authority. It therefore employs various methods to suppress information disseminators and reserves the privilege of releasing new information exclusively to itself.
How about South Korea in the digital era? Thanks to the internet, we can receive new information without time constraints. Furthermore, due to the activities of individual YouTubers, information that the government may be reluctant to disclose can easily be accessed.
Given this situation, I would pose two questions.
In the analog and digital worlds, how do people view and respond to new information?
Second, what perspectives and stances do the media take?
When I arrived in South Korea, people around me were curious about my use of the internet and social media.
“I couldn’t access any information that wasn’t the voice of the Workers’ Party of Korea,” I said. They were surprised.
“From now on, you’ll see much more information about the whole world,” they said.
In telling me this, they conveyed the unexamined assumption that lots of information and ever more rapid delivery is better than scarce and delayed information. They believed that a system based on diversity would deliver more truthful information than a system that monopolizes information.
I also adopted such beliefs. Now, after four years in South Korea, I have witnessed something very peculiar. Most of the people I’ve met here have 100 percent trust in the specific broadcasting station that they prefer watching.
This observation leads me to conclude that in a society like North Korea, people may be materially backward, but in other ways, especially in their instincts, they are highly developed.
I say this because North Koreans naturally acquire the skills necessary for survival. One such skill is the “power of thought.” For those living with limited information, the truthfulness of information is crucial. In impoverished societies, information is generally linked to food, clothing, and shelter so misinformation directly impacts their life.
In North Korea, where people rely on a single media source for their livelihood, it is rare to find someone who completely trusts what the state tells them. People constantly discern whether the media information is accurate or not. Of course, they didn’t start with distrust and judgment. The villagers, you might say, didn’t doubt Aesop at the beginning. It’s the repeated lies within North Korean society that have made people wary.
What, then, is the basis for believing or not believing in information? For me, it’s not who says it. It’s not because it’s from the government or high-ranking officials. Rather, it is down to the various indicators and standards I possess. This is what I mean by the “power of thought.”
Ironically, media outlets in South Korea seem to diminish this power in their readers and viewers.
A friend in South Korea once asked me where I got a certain opinion from. When I told him the media channel, he dismissed it, saying the channel was biased.
I wondered then what made him think only the channels he enjoys watching were correct? Why do people believe that their preferred channels convey only the truth while dismissing others as spreading falsehoods?
In capitalist markets, media outlets are not solely limited to being conveyors of information. To some extent, media that relies on advertising are bound to pander in some way to their audience’s tastes. This has intensified with the advent of the digital age. There is a greater temptation than ever to develop content and formats that consumers enjoy, regardless of the accuracy or truthfulness of the information being conveyed.
This is the sad reality of capitalist media as I see it. It manipulates our thoughts without us even realizing it.
I was captivated, and domesticated, by the media after escaping North Korea. What initially caught my eye was the towering billboards in the middle of the road. Even in pitch-black nights, these illuminated advertisements were apparitions of beauty for me. They symbolized freedom. This feeling stemmed from the contrast with the nights in North Korea, where we had to rely on moonlight when it was dark. “Capitalism’s night is truly beautiful,” I thought.
A year later, the billboards no longer held such sway.
The products sparkling within those advertisements made me feel insecure and alienated because I didn’t own them. The flickering lights seemed to say that I couldn’t enter the beautiful world they portrayed. Unbeknownst to me, my mind and body began to be domesticated by the media from that moment on. My “power of thought” was fading.
Here in South Korea, the multiple media outlets keep whispering into my ears, disturbing me.
This makes me wonder about freedom. Are we truly free from the media? Do we have a filter that allows us to sift through the stories they present? If not, how may we develop and strengthen it?
Born in Chongjin in 1990, Jang Mi was not a studious child, but under her mother’s influence, she graduated from high school and went on to university to take math and science. She worked as a wedding video editor for seven years until her defection in 2019.
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