User:Lko2/sandbox

North Korea
Despite North Korea’s traditionally strict isolationism, K-pop has managed to sneak across the country’s borders. While consumption of South Korean entertainment is punishable by death in North Korea, it has still become increasingly more available with the global rise of technology and the implementation of underground smuggling networks over the past decades. Utilizing the increasingly sophisticated smuggling networks, several thousands of USBs and SD cards containing K-pop and K-dramas have been distributed and sold through care packages and the black market. Although this practice had originally began with banned books and simple radios, there is now a high demand for South Korean media following the cultural phenomena of hallyu, or the Korean Wave.

The dissemination of K-pop and Korean media has been crucial in presenting the realities of North Korea to its citizens. By detailing the basic conditions of life in South Korea and introducing foreign ideologies, Korean media has aroused civil unrest amongst both citizens and elites concerning the disparities between living conditions inside and outside North Korea. The high demand for Korean media continues to rise as now approximately 70% of North Koreans consume foreign media in their homes. In fact, one researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification claims to have never met a single defector who had not seen or listened to foreign media before entering South Korea.