Psychological Words in Music and Propagandistic Communication in Two Koreas over the DMZ

Introduction

There are two Koreas: North and South. Since the Korean War embraced the truce in 1953, the two Koreas have pursued different political systems and ideologies. The North, officially known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, adopted a self-reliant socialist ideology to govern whilst the South, officially known as Republic of Korea, chose a democracy. The polarized political governing systems have caused intense conflict and crisis in hopes of achieving unification from both sides. From 1953 to 2015, the two Koreas while wishing unification for one Korea have paved different paths for survival skills. The South has benefited itself from the government-organized economic growth drives which have led to the birth of its global companies such as Samsung, Hyundai and LG. Such companies play a lead role in boosting the country’s wealth. The North in contrast focused on tightening the Kim family’s reins. As a result, the country suffers from severe poverty, although it still brags about its military and nuclear power.

Over the last 60 years, the North committed dozens of provocative actions against the South. One recent, cruel incident took place when the North torpedoed a South Korean naval vessel in 2010, which claimed the lives of 46 sailors. Throughout history of the South Korean government’s responses to the North’s brutality, there have been no effective punishment or retaliation because of the bigger concern about having another Korean War. Such a concern served as a main engine for the South to count on a passive resolution to counterattacking the North until August 2015 when the South accused the North of implanting landmines which wounded two South Korean soldiers on the southern part of the demilitarized zone (DMZ). The landmine incident became a watershed moment for the South to come up with changes in military strategies as a reaction to the North’s sporadic and unpredictable savage attacks. Rather than taking a militarily physical measure, President Park Geun-hye of the South ordered to resume propaganda war on loudspeakers across the isolated DMZ, in which the two Koreas agreed to end the speaker war in 2004. In the era of globalization, where the world is connected through cutting-edge communication technologies, the South decided to resuscitate one of the oldest primitive communication technologies, loudspeakers, after considering the effectiveness of spreading propagandistic messages to North Korean soldiers across the border.

It was not surprising with the fact that the South’s resolution was to demonstrate its hostility towards the North in a form of propagandistic message dissemination in which the two Koreas were used to exchanging lousy voices carrying ideological and political statements through loudspeakers; however, this time the South strategized its content of propagandistic messages by embedding K-pop songs into propaganda, which resulted in a historic difference of eliciting the North’s frantic reactions. The songs eventually led to the North’s apology for the ill-intended landmine terrorism. The apology or its expression of ‘regret’ over the wounding of two South Korean soldiers can be recorded as a historical achievement for the South since the North had the tendency of neither apologizing nor expressing regret over any attacks on the South (Choi, 2015a). Even for the landmine incident, the North had denied laying the landmines before the K-pop propaganda began.

Departing from the landmine incident, this article provides a brief overview of the two Koreas’ tensions since 2010. Then it explores the four steps of a propagandistic framework between the two countries. The four steps are designed to link ideologies of language use, embedded in songs. In so doing, this article aims to provide a theoretical framework for linguistic meanings of songs and their effectiveness of psychological influence from a propagandistic perspective. More importantly, a linguistic and psychological analysis of the impact of K-pop songs on North Korean soldiers takes a greater part in this study, in addition to a demonstration of musical influence on emotions, induced by rhythm, beats and lyrics. ¹ As a result, this study takes a comprehensive approach to the linguistic analogy on music psychology and propagandistic communication to generate a great deal of contribution to one another.

Traditional Propaganda Exchanges in the Two Koreas

Since the 1953 Korean Armistice Agreement, the Korean Peninsula has never been at ease; but rather a relentless amount of tensions revolve around the Korean DMZ, running across the 38th parallel. One day after the signing of the Armistice, Kim Il-Sung, the founder of North Korea, claimed that it was the ‘historical victory’ for the North due to three years of ‘heroic battle’ against the American imperialists who intended to create a military base on the peninsula in pursuit of attacking the Soviet Union and China (Agov, 2013). Kim’s propagandist messages, aimed at injecting the superiority of his vision and decisiveness as a great leader of the Communist country, went straight into the heads of people of North Korea. Such messages effectively affected the individuals’ mental images, as a lack of communication with those outside the country limited the availability of alternative ideas. While propagating the idea of the superiority of the North, the Kim’s regime focused on injecting the image of South Korea as an impoverished ‘Yankee colony’ into the hearts and minds of North Koreans (Gabroussenko, 2011).

The Kim’s regime, using propaganda to secure its power inside the country, organized systematic propaganda paradigms to undermine the yet-to-be-developed South Korean government in the 1950s. The North began loudspeaker broadcasts along the DMZ in the late 1950s, targeting South Korean soldiers to consider being defectors (Kim, 2005). The broadcasts were seen as the first propagandistic execution in a form of psychological warfare against the South. Major paradigms of the propaganda were ‘communist paradise versus capitalist hell’, where the indigent South Korean peasants suffered the lack of mechanized labour with only skinny ox in comparison to the North counterparts who even had tractors for their farm work (Gabroussenko, 2011, p. 32). The North had five distinctive goals of operating the loudspeaker propaganda: (a) spreading revolutionary indoctrination throughout the South Korean populace; (b) provoking struggles for anti-American independence among South Korean people; (c) launching disguised peace offensives against South Korea; (d) inducing internal discord within South Korean society; and (e) creating a favourable international environment to incite revolution in the South (Defense White Paper, 2010). In response to the North’s propaganda broadcasts, the South in the 1960s responded with its own banks of speakers, sending messages of the superiority of democratic systems to communism. The South elaborated on its theme with the rapidly developing South Korean economy in the context of affluence while the North struggled with hunger and deprivation (Dor, 2015). Since Kim Il-Sung’s death in 1994, his son Kim Jong-Il who attained power declared unification of the two Koreas under communist control (Defense White Paper, 2010). Kim Jong-Il ordered to spread over 30 propaganda programmes through loudspeakers at the DMZ, ‘repeating them anywhere from two to ten times for ten or eleven hours per day’ (Rouse & Freidman, 2015, para. 10). Loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts continued until June 2004 when both nations agreed to end them by mutual consent due to then South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun’s engagement policy, which provoked controversy among South Korean conservatives who claimed that Roh had a tendency of promoting anti-American sentiment as opposed to pro-North Korea sentiment in the country. Roh eventually walked across the DMZ in travelling to Pyongyang in 2007 to hold an inter-Korean summit with Kim Jong-Il. After the death of Kim Jong-Il in December 2011, his third son Kim Jong-Un was officially declared the supreme leader of the North.

Since the sinking of the naval corvette in 2010, the South re-installed propaganda loudspeakers; however, the country was hesitant to resume loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts. It instead used a number of direct FM radio broadcasts into North Korea until August 2015 when President Park ordered the resuscitation of loudspeaker broadcasts with the main content of K-pop songs instead of Korean folk songs such as Arirang, the most Korean folk song on both sides of the border. Most Korean folk songs carry a history memorable for its sorrow and pain of Korean women, and very few people of young generation of South and North are interested in such music (see Choi, 2014; EXPO, 2012). The South Korean government explained the reason of choosing K-pop songs over the folk songs: ‘North Koreans are prohibited from listening to K-Pop because they’re only allowed to listen to government-controlled TV and radio stations, but defectors from the North say South Korean music is popular and illicitly smuggled in on USB sticks and DVDs’ (Omara, 2016, para. 9).

Psychological Effectiveness of Songs on the Mind as Propaganda

Music has power to influence human emotions and the quality of their judgements. Whitcombe (2013) argued that since human brains are a sensible and articulate organ with an agile response to sounds, the characteristics of music to which brains are exposed affect the human ability of making decisions. Music has six distinctive clouts of being used to influence human minds, according to Whitcombe (2013).

In short, music has the power to change people’s level of alertness, influence their focus and induce feelings of pleasure and fear.

Music can implant happy and sad emotions into the minds of people. Nusbaum and Silvia found that listening to music simply creates chills or more particularly feelings of goosebumps and shivers on the neck, scalp and spine (2010). The powerful effects of music are associated with everyday life, including personal moods. Ferguson and Sheldon (2013) argued that people who try to boost their mood while listening to music are likely to achieve higher positive mood. In addition, people who are exposed to positive music build a tendency of improving happiness (2013). Engaging with music either way of positive or negative gives the experience for extra emotional power. In other words, even negative or sad music is able to build happy moods under certain circumstances. Sometimes sad music is enjoyable because it creates a mix of negative and positive emotions (Kawakami, Furukawa, Katahira, & Okanoya, 2013). Based on such findings, it is important to note that a rapid exposure to happy music should be able to induce people’s happy faces.

Music consists of sounds and messages. Messages embedded in music have a better chance of getting human attentions when they try to listen to and feel the music’s rhythm and analyse the meaning of lyrics. For example, messages embedded into religious and political campaign songs have extra emotional power as a compelling teaching method. In a similar vein, the power of music regarding human influence culminates when the listener does not need to be consciously aware of the music to absorb the intention of the message (Hargreaves, 1986). Hence, propagandistic music can be viewed as an effective communication tool of influencing and persuading a particular group of people who are seen as the target audience by the sender of the music. Tormsen (2015) listed five historical examples of musical propaganda from the United States of America, Japan, Zimbabwe, Cambodia and ISIS.

Whitcombe (2013) explained a neurological process of music influencing emotions, writing, ‘Music can manipulate the way your brain processes information by tapping into your emotions. It starts with the RAS—our brain’s information filtering system’ (para. 24). Reticular activating system (RAS), responsible for arousal and sleep of human beings, plays a central role in bodily and behavioural alertness by affecting the function of the cerebral cortex and that of bodily posture. In other words, RAS controls the emotional part of brain, especially fear, which leads to an innate sense of survival. When RAS conveys the sense of fear to the brain, the alarm for survival mode as a primary motivation is activated along with the body. The Music & Memory foundation suggests that music can both tap deep emotional recall and enable the listener to focus on the present moment (Kreps, 2015). Music triggers the emotional sense of neurological impact on the desire to communicate through sounds.

One of the most popular songs which can be arguably seen as propagandistic music is John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’. Critics argue that the song has a subliminal power of sparking a neurological impact on the ideology of anarchism (Blaney, 2005). For example, Texas Senator Lee Tiralo pointed out that ‘The lines, Imagine there’s no countries, would incite unnecessary tension in the already volatile Israel–Palestine zone’. He adds, ‘the opening lines Imagine there’s no heaven, are outrightly, impudently blasphemous’ (Chakravarti, 2013). The senator proposed a bill that would ban the song from being sung or heard in the United States of America in March 2013. The bill was hailed by powerful organizations and public figures such as the National Rifle Association (NRA), Wall Street Journal and Donald Trump. The NRA Chief Larry Prattle said, ‘The rifle is the emblem of a free man. Lennon’s lines nothing to kill or die for, disregard American citizens’ right to self-defence’; The Wall Street Journal viewed the bill as ‘an important step in a continuing war against anti-capitalist propaganda’; and Trump said, ‘Who would want a world without possessions?’ by referring to the song lyrics ‘Imagine no possessions’ (Chakravarti, 2013). They interpreted the song as a vehicle for spreading subtle and subliminal propagandistic messages against capitalism and the freedom of possessions. In contrast, some groups characterized the song as ‘22 lines of graceful, plain-spoken faith in the power of a world, united in purpose, to repair and change itself’ (Waldman, 2015). ‘Imagine’, since its release in 1971, has been a ritual music genre in the wake of terrible world events.

More recently in an age of social media, ‘Imagine’ functions as the iconic song of a mentally healing music genre, not by famous singers but by any musicians in the world. One day after the Paris attacks by gunmen and suicide bombers of the ISIS killing more than 130 people and injuring hundreds in November 2015, a man played ‘Imagine’ on a grand piano outside the Bataclan theatre where the deadliest shootings occurred. His performance was recorded with smartphones of the crowd and even broadcasted live on social networking sites. It became an overnight viral sensation. The performer, identified as a German artist, said in an interview with The Guardian, ‘I wanted to be there to try and comfort, and offer a sign of hope’ (2015). He added, ‘I can’t bring people back but I can inspire them with music and when people are inspired they can do anything. That’s why I played Imagine’. Blaney (2005) in a book, titled, John Lennon: Listen to This Book described ‘Imagine’ as a ‘humanistic paean for the people’, a kind of secular prayer. Music has the power to touch people emotionally where the collaboration with messages in a form of lyrics adds more power.

Songs as Linguistic Propaganda in Human Brain

A song is comprised of a melodic and lyrical phrase. Song writers and singers aim to communicate with their target audience through a specific channel that is regarded as ‘the visual’ (Dettwyler, 2011, p. 409). A song is part of linguistic entity which is purposely designed to distribute melodic messages between individuals in social settings. In other words, the practice of musicality of language in songs arose in critical social issues, namely ‘the account of voice and its relationship to social agency, deference, social imagination, and identity’ (Feld, Fox, Porcello, & Samuels, 2004, p. 323). In a similar way, human language reveals how societal enforcement is shaped and songs with repeated melodic and lyrical phrases can maximize the impact on human behaviour through the visual channel. Sweeney (2009) argued that people tend to match the tone of songs they heard in the process of brain interpretation as happy or sad because their brains, especially parts of sensory cortex and auditory cortex, are affected by perceived emotions and felt emotions. Such cortexes have the capacity of processing music and lyrics. Another brain area called the superior temporal gyrus is in charge of accepting a music recommendation system that encourages listeners to appreciate a given piece of the same songs repeatedly (Landau, 2016).

Many studies have explained how effective language can be to human brain. According to the Linguistic Society of America, it is in the nature of language that humans have an ability to interpret ambiguous or arbitrary exchanges of linguistic format due to the conversational context of the brain (2017). As French linguistic Roland Barthes explained arbitrariness of the constructs of language in semiotics, language ordinally communicates through the concept of signifier and signified arbitrarily later replaced by the term ‘motivated’ (Robinson, 2011). The relationship between a signifier and a signified is motivated from linguistic exchanges which are interpreted in human brain. For Barthes, human communication is mediated by the transitional procedure from non-linguistic to linguistic exchanges. For example, a melody can carry linguistic meanings with no words because of the interpretive ability of human brain. Such meanings lead to a change in human actions. Barthes (2011) argued that every act is at once an act (signified) and a sign of itself (signifier). Based on the argument, it is said that language exists to produce sensuality, or sensory responses, and songs have invincible power of carrying such an influence on human brain with the combination of language and melody. There is no doubt that Nazi and other military forces historically adopted songs to propagate their ideology.

K-pop Songs Provoking Nervousness Towards the Kim Jong-Un Regime

North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Un has been in the world spotlight since he became the king of the poor country in his late 20s. Due to his looks of overweight body and a centre-parted shaved-side cut or Fred Flintstone haircut, he is one of the easiest targets of mockery from the world media. However, he has continued his father’s military-first policies which lead to the development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, including hydrogen bomb tests. Like his father, the buffoon-figured leader is accustomed to adopting the same diplomatic tactics towards South Korea and the United States of America: launching ballistic missiles, targeting South Korean soldiers to hurt or conducing nuclear tests and then calling for peaceful talks to receive financial aid. There has been neither an apology nor a confession to any wrongdoings, but denials. It had been the run-of-the-mill provocation cycle of North Korea until South Korea President Park in 2015 decided not to condone anymore barbaric actions of the North when the two South Korean soldiers lost their legs on the landmine incident, in which the North planted landmines near the South’s military guard post. The North refused to take responsibility.

President Park insisted that North Korea apologize for planting landmines while ordering the resumptions of loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts across the border for the first time in 11 years. In response, the North threatened to destroy the loudspeakers, regarding the use of the loudspeakers as an ‘act of war’, which would result in strong military action that could turn South Korea into a ‘sea of fire’. The South kept demanding that the North apologize for the landmine blast by loudspeaker broadcasting an FM radio station that featured a mix of casual conversation, anti-North Korea content, discussion from defectors and reports about human rights abuses in the North (Moulton, 2015). However, the North increased its threat level of act of war. The South in a quick response made a slight change to the loudspeaker broadcast features to a unique home-grown weapon, Korean pop music, or K-pop, targeting young soldiers of the North. The music propaganda broadcasts were nicknamed ‘The Sound of Hope’, similar to the contents of North Korea’s FM broadcast ‘The Sound of Freedom’ (All KPOP.com, 2015). The loudspeaker took place at a total of 11 locations on the front lines of the border. In the end, it turned out that K-pop songs functioned to expose a weak spot for Kim Jong-Un and his regime.

The South blasted K-pop music across the DMZ, cherry-picking three songs to broadcast. They were Big Bang’s ‘Bang Bang Bang’, Girls’ Generation’s ‘Tell Me Your Wish (Genie)’, and IU’s ‘Heart’. Big Bang is a boy band of five members; Girls’ Generation is a girl band of eight members; and IU is a female singer–songwriter. All of them are famous and have a wide range of hit songs. The songs were selected because the South found a diverse range of the most recent popular hits interesting, according to a Defense Ministry official at a news briefing for reporters.

‘Bang Bang Bang’ (Korean: ¹ð¹ð¹ð) was released in June 2015, and won ‘Song of the Year’ award at 2015 Mnet Asian Music Awards. The song’s powerful lyrics to appeal to North Korean soldiers were excerpted and translated by the authors:

This song is composed with electron rhythm beats and energetic verse with a repeated hook of ‘bang bang bang’ which could get stuck in people’s heads. This kind of a catchy song generally tends to follow such a song structure of ABABCB (A = verse, B = chorus, C = bridge or solo) with words that are easy to remember and often repeat humming the most memorable parts throughout the day (Parrish, 2014).

‘Genie: Tell Me Your Wish’ (Korean: ¼“¿øÀ» ¸»ÇغÁ), released in June 2009, is an electropop song, with influence of Eurodance.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Korean	English
찌질한 분위기를 전환해 광기를 감추지 못하∞‘ 해 남자들의 품위 여자들의 가식 이유 모를 자신감이 볼만해 난 보란 듯이 너무나도 뻔뻔히 니 몸º”에 파고드는 알러지 이상한 정신의 술렁이는 천지 오늘 여기 무법지 난 ∫“을 질러 심장을 태워 널 미치∞‘ 하고 싶어 B.I.G Yea we bang like this 모두 다 같이 총 맞은 것처럼 BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! 다 꼼짝 마라 다 꼼짝 마 다 꼼짝 마라 다 꼼짝 마 오늘 밤 끝장 보자 다 끝장 봐 널 데려가 지금 이 순간에 새빨간 저 하늘이 춤출 때 돌고 돌아 너와 나 이곳은 Valhalla 찬양하라 더 울려 퍼지∞‘ 총 맞은 것처럼	Switch up your loser mood So they can’t hide this insanity The dignity of men, the sham of women It’s tempting to see this kind of unaccustomed confidence I blatantly dig into your body like an allergy as if boasting Earth and sky engulfed in a strange mind Today, this mind is out of order I’ll set this mind on fire, to burn up your heart I want to make you crazy B.I.G Yea we bang like this, everyone together Like we have been shot BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! Nobody move, nobody move Nobody move, nobody move Let’s push to the end of this night, see the end I’ll take you away at this moment When the red-coloured sky dances We’re spinning and spinning, you and I, this place is Valhalla Worship and spread it out louder Like we have been shot
º“원을 말해봐 니 마음º”에 있는 작은 꿈을 말해봐 니 ∏”리에 있는 이상형을 그려봐 그리고 나를 봐 난 너의 Genie야 꿈이야 Genie야 드림카를 타고 달려봐 넌 내 옆자리에 앉아 그저 내 이끌림 º”에 모두 던져 가슴 벅차 터져버려도 바람결에 날려버려도 지금 이 순간 세상은 너의 것 그래요 난 널 사랑해 언제나 믿어 꿈도 열정도 다 주고 싶어 난 그대 º“원을 이뤄주고 싶은 행운의 여신 º“원을 말해봐 º“원을 말해봐 º“원을 말해봐 지루한 날들이 넌 지겹지 않니 평범한 생활에 넌 묻혀버렸니 이제 그만 깨어나 넌 나의 Superstar shining star superstar º“원을 말해봐 º“원을 말해봐 º“원을 말해봐	Tell me your wish Tell me your small dream in your mind Picture your ideal person in your head And then look at me I’m your genie, your dream, your genie Get in our dream car and drive off You take a seat beside me Just throw everything into my lead Though your heart being exploded Though it flies away along with the wind The very moment, the world is yours You are right, I love you I always believe in you Your dream and passion I wish to give you all I want to make your wishes happen Your lucky lady Tell me your wish Tell me your wish Tell me your wish Aren’t you tired of a series of boring days Have you been swamped with your corny life It is time to wake up You are my superstar, shining star, super star Tell me your wish Tell me your wish Tell me your wish
툭 웃음이 터지면 그건 너 쿵 내려앉으면은 그건 너 축 ∏”금고 있다면 그건 너 µ’ 울림이 생긴다면 그건 너 그대를 보며 나는 더운 숨을 쉬어요 아픈 기분이 드는 건 그 때문이겠¡“ 나를 알아주지 않으셔도 돼요 찾아오지 않으셔도 다만 꺼지지 않는 작은 ∫“빛이 여기 반짝 살아있어요 영영 살아있어요 눈을 떼지 못 해 하루종일 눈이 시려요 슬픈 기분이 드는 건 그 때문이겠¡“ 세상 모든 ∞‘ 죽고 새로 태어나 다시 늙어갈 때에도 감히 이 마음만은 주름도 없이 여기 반짝 살아있어요 영영 살아있어요	If I burst into laughter, it’s you If my heart sinks, it’s you If I hold something, it’s you If there is a ringing, it’s you As I look at you I breathe out a hot air Feeling like my heart is broken Is because of you It would be all right if you don’t know me Or if you don’t come visit me But a small flickering light that won’t go out Is twinkling and alive right here It stays forever Not being able to take my eyes off of you For an entire day, my eyes hurt Feeling sad Is because of you If everything in the world dies and reborn If I grow old again This heart won’t have any wrinkles It’s twinkling and alive right here It stays forever

‘Genie: Tell Me Your Wish’, dubbed as the song of ‘Hello Kitty’ by the New York Times (Choi, 2015b), was sung by the famous Korean girl group, Girls’ Generation. With the song’s persuasive lyrics components of asking an imaginary boyfriend to tell his wish to the singers, this song’s Musique-concrete sound technique (concrete music) as a genre of electroacoustic music culminates its musical appeal, backed up by the singers’ harmonious chorus. This song also adds some rap in the middle, ‘Tell me your fantasy, without holding back. I’ll show you the genie’s path. Tell me your wish, without holding back, I, your genie, will grant them’. With such verse repetition of wish, genie and dream that creates psychological linguistic adhesiveness in the head, listeners tend to be drawn into the imaginary picture of what they wish to have and what lies ahead in the future (Parrish, 2014).

‘Heart’ (Korean: ¸¶À½) was released in May 2015. This song reflects the South Korean youth culture by the ‘feathery-voiced chanteuse’ IU, according to The New York Times (2015).

This song is composed of poetic, love-oriented lyrics paired with the sweet and soothing vocals of the singer, who was 21 years old at the time of the song’s release. For North and South Koreans, the age of approximately 20–30 years old is considered the golden age of love, dating, and break-ups. ‘Heart’ is the soft acoustic track, written, composed and produced by IU herself. The female singer–songwriter is known for her ballad-love lyrics that help hum the most memorable parts of the song. Keeping such a lyrical theme music for the verses is likely to lure listeners in their emotional reminiscence of their love stories (Parrish, 2014).

According to the NK News organization, there has been a growing interest in K-pop idol groups such as Girls’ Generation in North Korea, but any South Korean songs or TV shows are prohibited to be heard or seen (NK News, 2015). If a North Korean was caught while listening to K-pop, he would be prisoned. Simply put, it is illegal for them to consume any type of South Korean cultural content. As mentioned, Kim Jung-Un is on high alert regarding young North Koreans admiring South Korean culture. K-pop is at the centre of the culture towards the young generation.

Conclusion

Former North Korean soldier Ju Seung-young who fled to South Korea in 2002 said, ‘The impact of [loudspeakers] was greater than you may expect because the South Korean loudspeakers were a rare source for news about the outside world’ (Dor, 2015). Ju explained that at first he believed what he heard from the speakers were all lies, but his exposure to the broadcasts urged him to considering being a defector in his unconsciously changing mind over the two-year-time period.

Since the DMZ creation in 1953 in the Korean Peninsula, the Koreas have exchanged a barrage of on-and-off propagandistic communications through leaflets, radio channels and loudspeakers. As a result, North Korea was never hesitant to initiate provocative war threats against the South while executing military attacks on South Korean territory and people. Even after the killing of 46 sailors, South Korea never turned loudspeakers on due to North Korea’s threat which habitually claimed to turn Seoul into a ‘sea of fire’. There had been neither an apology nor an acceptance from the North in any occasions of barbaric action against the South until late August 2015. North Korea expressed regret over the recent wounding of South Korean soldiers in the landmine incident. The South Korean national security adviser announced, ‘North Korea apologized for the landmine provocation and promised to work to prevent the recurrence of such events and ease tensions’ (The Reuters, 2015). It was a historic moment for South Korea that was fed up with the North’s hostile pattern of provoke–negotiate–repeat for economic and diplomatic gains. The North after more than three days of talks with the South at the border village of Panmunjom promised to end the stand-off and to give up on the ‘quasi-state of war’ it had declared. The South agreed to stop using loudspeakers in response to the North Korea’s demand for halting the loudspeaker K-pop song propaganda.

The first apology of the North since the Korean War proves the effectiveness of loudspeaker propaganda in an association with K-pop songs that most of the front-line North Korean soldiers who are sons of the North Korean elites were not supposed to hear. Such songs, transmitted through loudspeakers, made the North exasperating and infuriating as the soldiers could not do anything but listen to them. The North viewed the loudspeaker K-pop songs as a vehicle for undermining ‘Kim’s dignity and the very foundation of his regime’, as music of rhythm and expressive lyrics has the power of affecting someone’s emotions and thoughts, which eventually generate the changes of behaviour and action (Choi, 2015b). In the war history, the powerful combination of loudspeakers and music played an important role in influencing the hearts and minds of soldiers over borders. For example, Germany and France exchanged loudspeaker music during the Second World War, and the two Germanys during the Cold War blasted loudspeaker music over the Berlin Wall.

This case of K-pop music and loudspeakers of the two Koreas demonstrates that loudspeaker propaganda is still alive and effective in terms of influencing a target audience in the era of globalization and Facebook. Moreover, songs with upbeat/dance rhythm and customized lyrics for the younger generation are able to have the tremendous effects over both thoughts and emotions of North Korean soldiers. Such songs even had the impact on the stubbornly irrational behaviour of the North Korean military elites, including Kim Jung-Un.

Certain limitations, of course, apply to this study. There is not enough evidence of how North Korea made an effort to minimize the impact of K-pop on its soldiers. Furthermore, this study is limited to data available from South Korean and international media. Future research could include interviews of North Korean soldiers who have fled to South Korea.