Propaganda leaflets and Cold War frames during the Korean War

Abstract

In the history of world wars, the Korean War (1950–1953) was not a forgotten war but the apogee of a propaganda war. By analyzing the contents of propaganda leaflets distributed during the Korean War, this study explored which frames were dominantly employed. The resulting findings were that the frames of ‘demoralization’ (25.7%) and ‘encouraging surrender’ (24.4%) were the most frequently used during the overall war period. Furthermore, the dominant frames varied depending upon the target audiences and language used. In terms of functional frames, the leaflet messages corresponded to definition and causal interpretation (22.8%), moral judgement (26.2%) and solution (49.9%). Interestingly, Chinese and North Korean leaflets preferred the imperialist frame to the Cold War frame even though the US and South Korean leaflets more heavily used the Cold War frame when they referred to foreign troops. Moreover, thematic frames (91.4%) were more widely used than episodic frames (8.6%) in the samples.

Keywords

Cold War frame frame analysis Korean War propaganda leaflet

Introduction

For most Western people, the Korean War is a forgotten war (Blair, 1987: Taylor, 1995). However, it has been remembered as the apogee of a psychological warfare campaign by war historians (Jacobson, 2005; Kim, 2003; Pease, 1992). During the Korean War (1950–1953), approximately 2.5 million propaganda leaflets were disseminated by both North and South Korea during the war (McCorkle, 1995). At its peak, more than 20 million leaflets were produced and delivered per week (Pease, 1992). Even after the armistice ended, fighting on ‘hot’ battlefields and psychological warfare in the form of propaganda leaflets continued in the Korean peninsula for more than 60 years (Park, 2007).

Since World War I, the power of propaganda leaflets has been widely discussed (Institute for Propaganda Analysis, 1937; Lasswell, 1971[1927]). For example, Lasswell (1971[1927]) argued that propaganda leaflets contributed to the mobilization of hatred against enemies, demoralization of enemies, preservation of friendship among allies and the acquisition of public support. The analysis of propaganda messages has contributed to the early development of content analysis techniques (Krippendorff, 2004); however, frame analysis has rarely been used as an analytical technique to examine wartime leaflets. To date, no studies have analyzed the frames of propaganda leaflets during the Korean War, although several studies have looked at the main themes of the messages (Chung, 2004; Kim, 2003) or the anecdotal descriptions in them (Pease, 1992; Story, 1952).

The present study explores frames of propaganda leaflets used during the Korean War, the first battlefield of the Cold War (Casey, 2008). In this process, this study questions whether the Cold War frame really dominated war propaganda in the Korean peninsula as much as it did in the United States (Chung, 2004). The Cold War may have been an unfamiliar concept to Koreans at that time, but also an ineffective one within the ‘hot’ war zone (Shin and Chang, 2004). This study also examines the functional purpose of the frames (Entman, 1993; Snow and Benford, 1998) and ways that the issues were presented (Iyengar, 1990) in order to illustrate the effectiveness of propaganda leaflets during the Korean War.

Propaganda leaflets before the Korean War

Even though the emphasis on psychological warfare may be traced back to ancient Greece and China (Pease, 1992; Taylor, 1995), it was the Roman Catholic Church that first officially organized psychological groups to propagate ideas and values against their opponents as a way to combat the growth of Protestantism in the 17th century (Finch, 2000; Taylor, 1995). During the Siege of Boston in the early stages of the American Revolutionary War, the American citizen army handed out leaflets, known as Prospect Hill vs Bunker Hill, which encouraged British soldiers to desert by promising good treatment and comfortable subsistence (Berger, 1961; Jacobson, 2005). Similarly, the British distributed printed leaflets that urged American militiamen to join the British army. At that time, leaflets were mostly disseminated by infiltrators or ground patrols (Berger, 1959).

In 1808, the Danes developed a new way of distributing propaganda leaflets by sending balloons over Sweden in order to incite revolt against the Swedish government (Murphy, 2005) and, in 1848, the Italians utilized aircraft to disseminate propaganda leaflets with anti-Austrian messages. Since the aircraft could carry large quantities of printed leaflets into battlefields and across enemy controlled territories, they became a main instrument in the dissemination of leaflets to their target audiences (Erdman, 1969).

Due to technological advances, millions of leaflets were cheaply printed and widely distributed at the beginning of the 20th century (Berger, 1959; Jacobson, 2005). By the outbreak of the First World War (WWI), the world powers were equipped with the material capacity to wage organized propaganda campaigns on a mass scale. Thus, through diverse instruments such as balloons, airplanes and artillery shells, billions of propaganda leaflets were distributed during the war (Pease, 1992). At the same time, a new term, psychological warfare was coined (LaPiere, 1951) and military units that produced propaganda leaflets were established (Winter, 2014: 216).

A content analysis of early propaganda leaflets showed that opposing nations were depicted in the leaflets as quarrelsome, crude and destructive (Lasswell, 1971[1927]). Furthermore, attacks against wounded women, children and seniors were frequent topics. Indeed, WWI leaflets from the US and their Allies had messages that chiefly emphasized the autocracy and inefficiency of the German government, and German nationalism became one of the main targets of the leaflets (Linebarger, 1953). In addition, it was frequently emphasized that surrendering soldiers would receive good food, humane care and hospitality.

During the Second World War (WWII), lessons from previous wars were adopted and developed (Herz, 1949). In terms of quantity, almost 6.57 billion leaflets with 26 languages were disseminated into Mediterranean and European areas during the war (Erdman, 1969). Specifically, propaganda against civilians was more subtly elaborated because the war was a ‘total war’ in which the gaps between military and civilian fronts substantially narrowed (Taylor, 1995). Soviet leaflets often had clumsy and absurd content at the beginning of WWII, such as ‘overthrow Hitler in order to save Germany’ (Herz, 1949). Furthermore, Communist concepts were over-used during the early stages of WWII. As the war proceeded, Russians began to dilute themes of communism (Margolin, 1946). As a result, they described themselves as the ‘liberators’ of countries in Eastern Europe from German control. They emphasized working with American and British forces to gain world peace by fighting against a common enemy.

Propaganda leaflets mass produced during both World Wars began to classify target audiences: enemy soldiers and civilians (Finch, 2000). Leaflet messages for enemy soldiers included items to demoralize the soldiers, to disengage their leaders, and to urge surrender. In contrast, messages to civilians in target areas aimed to mobilize hatred against enemy soldiers and to acquire public support (Lasswell, 1971[1927]). Specifically, the leaflets targeted any marginal person who did not believe in everything that the Allies said and at the same time he or she did not believe in everything that the opponent had to say (Herz, 1949). Since modern war is not a war between armies but between nations, ways of persuading civilians were importantly emphasized during WWII (Finch, 2000).

Propaganda leaflets during the Korean War

The Korean War has been called the ultimate psychological war (Pease, 1992). Based on knowledge of propaganda acquired in previous wars, the war of 1950–1953 exploited state-of-the-art communication studies. The contents employed were a mixture of leaflets that were tested and proved effective during WWI and WWII. In particular, airborne leaflets were the most important tools of the time. Over 2.5 billion leaflets – a third of the amount distributed in all of WWII – bombarded the tiny Korean peninsula over a mere three years (McCorkle, 1995).

The fact that this was the first opportunity for the US army to encounter contemporary Communist propaganda has lead communication scholars to investigate the leaflets during the Korean War (Glander, 1996: Riley and Schramm, 1951). For instance, Wilbur Schramm, ‘the founder’ of communication studies, was engaged not only in several propaganda and psychological warfare research projects for the US Department of State, but also guided and advised psychological warfare staff by visiting Korea from 25 November 1950 to 1 February 1951 (Glander, 1996).

Pease (1992) stressed that leaflets were the most widely used method of waging psychological warfare during the Korean War. Since many mass media facilities such as newspapers and radio were devastated by combat, the leaflet became one of the most powerful persuasive means available. The ‘Safe Conduct Pass’ was one of the most popular leaflets disseminated during the Korean War (Lee, 2006). With texts in Korean, Chinese and English, these leaflets were dropped over North Korean and Chinese troops. The leaflets stressed that soldiers found carrying the leaflets would be treated hospitably. Worried about the effectiveness of enemy leaflets, the Communists treated the picking up of UN leaflets as a serious offense. For this reason, paper money was printed on the back of leaflets in order to ensure that soldiers could hide the leaflets in their wallets because picking up or possessing them often meant death for North Korean or Chinese Soldiers (Oh, 1988). As a result, North Korean and Chinese leaflets imitated US leaflets and its strategies (Pease, 1992). In particular, Communist leaflets were aimed at US soldiers and often stirred black vs white racial tensions by using photos of black soldiers being beaten and tortured by white soldiers.

The techniques and experiences of psychological warfare during the Korean War were handed down to the succeeding wars, Vietnam and the Iraq War. For example, Whittaker (1997) argued that most propaganda leaflets during the Vietnam War were nothing special because they had almost the same messages as those found in the leaflets of WWII and the Korean War, even though there were some exceptions that emphasized Chinese intervention in North Vietnam. Similarly, Clark and Christie (2005) found that the propaganda leaflets were still effectively utilized in recent wars. They discovered that the main function of coalition leaflets distributed during the Iraq War were mainly about survival and counter disinformation, which promoted US ideology. Specifically, almost 79.8 percent of the samples directly dealt with economic, military or civilian survival. Interestingly, the proportion of civilian targets increased to almost half of the samples.

Frames in the Korean War leaflets

Definitions of frames

The messages distributed in propaganda leaflets were one of the first media content research topics. For example, propaganda was extensively analyzed in 1927 by Lasswell (1971[1927]: 9) who defined propaganda as ‘the control of opinion by significant symbols, or, to speak more concretely or less accurately, by stories, rumors, reports, pictures, and other forms of social communication’. Similarly, George (1959: 14) argued that the goal of propaganda could be accomplished ‘by a particular message or by a particular line, theme, emphasis, or omission within that message’. These definitions are enough to remind us of media frames. Gitlin (1980), who pioneered frame analysis as a method of analyzing media content, defined media frames as ‘persistent patterns of cognition, interpretation, and presentation, of selection, emphasis, and exclusion’ (p. 7). In view of the similarities found between these definitions, the effects of propaganda are inherently nothing more than the effects of framing. As such, Gamson and Modigliani (1987: 143) argued that the frame is ‘a central organizing idea or story line that provides meaning to an unfolding strip of events, weaving a connection among them’.

Goffman (1974) defined a frame as a central element of its culture, which renders something less meaningful into something more meaningful. Thus, within his or her social schema, each individual is enabled to understand frames by locating, perceiving, identifying and labeling events and information. Similarly, Ettema (2005: 131) argued that media content must be framed to ‘resonate with what writers and readers take to be real and important matters of life’. Indeed, media effects occur strongly when the messages resonate with the target audiences. Thus, investigating the frames used in propaganda leaflets allows us to ascertain whether or not they resonated with their target audiences. For example, a US leaflet used the myth of Tangun, a legendary founder of the Korean nation in 2333 BC in order to make its messages more Korean-friendly (see Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Tangun in a propaganda leaflet (Pang, 2000).

Thematic and episodic frames

In general, the frames may be classified into two categories: generic frames and issue-specific frames (De Vreese, 2005). Issue-specific frames are pertinent to only specific contexts and issues. Issue specific frames often vary, depending on the researchers’ definition and interpretation of contexts. Conversely, generic frames refer to those that are applicable to any topic and contexts. The dichotomy of thematic and episodic frames suggested by Iyengar (1990) is an example of this.

This classification offers a representative and exemplary analysis of how media producers present problems and solutions (Iyengar, 1990; Iyengar and Simon, 1993). For example, after investigating how news media framed the issue of poverty between 1981 and 1986, Iyengar (1990) found that when television news sources reported on poverty with a thematic frame, society in general was viewed as responsible for the cause of poverty. However, when television news sources reported on poverty based on an individual person’s experiences, the cause of poverty was attributed to the actions of that particular individual.

Thus, he argued that it was the difference in frames which accounted for the dissimilar attributions of responsibility.

In the context of propaganda leaflets, the episodic frame attributed the origin of the Korean War to a small number of individuals. Antipathies against the rich and powerful are examples of this. For instance, one propaganda leaflet said:

A rich Korean doctor battered a hungry child and scarred the child’s head with an iron because the child stole a piece of food. In spite of his bad behavior, the doctor is able to enjoy life because the U.S. soldiers protect him. Indeed, the U.S. soldiers are no different than such merciless doctors.

By contrast, the thematic frame attributed the war to inherent systemic problems. To some extent, episodic frames (see, e.g., Figure 2) tend to be more easily understood by the general public than thematic frames (see, e.g., Figure 3). Specifically, illiterate or uneducated people might have difficulty in figuring out the meaning of thematic messages. Figure 3 illustrates this point based on the early days of the war. In this leaflet, President Truman denounced North Korea’s invasions as a breach of peace and announced that the United States, together with the UN Security Council, would take action to repel the Communist invasion. The messages consisted of texts, in a mixture of Korean and Chinese characters.

Figure 2.

An example of an episodic frame (Pang, 2000).

Figure 3.

An example of a thematic frame (Pang, 2000).

Thus, we may pose the following research question:

RQ1: Between thematic and episodic frames, which frame was more frequently employed in the Korean War leaflets?

Dominant frames and functional frames

Several studies conducted systematic content analyses of the Korean War leaflets. For example, Hosmer (1996) classified the themes of the Korean War leaflets into four categories: (1) those related to safety, benefits, and ways to surrender; (2) those related to the risks and hardships of continued resistance; (3) those pointing out the illegitimacy of Communist objectives; and (4) those pointing out the UN’s objectives and peace terms, emphasizing the UN’s goals in the truce negotiations.

Lee (2006) also analyzed diverse airborne leaflets during the Korean War. In particular, he examined how the propaganda messages changed as the war proceeded. According to Lee’s classification, messages right after the war broke out (25 June – 15 September 1950), targeted South Korean civilians in order to assure their cooperation with the UN’s participation and to reveal the atrocities committed by the Communists. In the UN’s counter-reaction period (15 September – 25 November 1950), the leaflets were dropped by B-29s on North Korean soldiers’ positions in order to persuade them to surrender. When the Chinese army poured into the war (25 November – 23 June 1951), the leaflets invoked tensions between North Koreans and the Chinese. During the stalemate and truce stage of the war (23 June 1951 – 27 July 1953), nostalgia, fear of death and persuasive arguments for surrender became the main content of the leaflets.

To some extent, a frame is very similar to a theme or a position on an issue. Sometimes, the two concepts were used almost identically (Pan and Kosicki, 1993; Van Gorp and Vercruysse, 2012), but a frame often goes beyond a theme because a frame has organized principles with social and cultural meaning and a theme may not have (Reese, 2001). Moreover, a frame structure may be embedded and implicit. That is, a frame may not be easily detected by looking at a single topic or a theme, but may be revealed by considering other components of messages such as sources or drawings (Gamson, 1992).

Schwalbe et al. (2008) found that more than 60 percent of the dominant images on television, in newspapers, and in news magazines during the Iraq War related to conflict frames which depicted civilians and military officials in charge as conflicting and supporting images of conflicts such as wide shots of massed troops and weaponry, bombs exploding, destroyed buildings and wrecked buildings. In contrast, human interest frames focused on an individual’s story or mainly emotional expressions to an event, issue, or problem (De Vreese and Semetko, 2004). In addition, a victory frame is frequently used in war-related communication (Aday et al., 2005). Instead of a battle itself, the victory frame simply suggests that the country has won the war which assures and pleases its part audience and creates discomfort for their opponents.

Issue-specific frames correspond to Entman’s (1993) functions of frames, even though they are not dovetailed. Entman (1993) posits four different types of frames: the definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation and solutions of a problem. Similarly, Snow and Benford (1998) addressed the three core tasks of frames: diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational framing. Entman’s frame functions of definition and causal interpretation can be grouped as diagnosis of the problems or conflicts. Likewise, prognostic frames seek what needs to be done to find remedies. Finally, moral judgement concerns motivational impetus for participation or discourages opponents by demoralization (Snow and Benford, 1998). In this vein, Entman’s (1993) functional frames were converted into diagnostic, prognostic, and moral frames. Similarly, Schwalbe and colleagues’ (2008) issue-specific frames mentioned above match with diagnostic (conflict), prognostic (victory), and motivational frame (human interest). Based on the previous discussion, the following questions can be posed for this study:

RQ2: What were the dominant frames used in the Korean War leaflets?

RQ3: How did the functional frames in the Allies’ leaflets differ from those found in the Communists’ leaflets?

The Cold War frames

Most international conflicts from 1945 to 1989 took place within the Cold War frame. This is true for conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, Angola, Nicaragua and Afghanistan (LaFeber, 1985). The Cold War frame depicts international events in terms of the fundamental rivalry between the capitalist and Communist worlds (Norris, 1995). Specifically, the Cold War frame refers to the classification of other countries as either ‘friends’ or ‘enemies’ of the United States and the Soviet Union, respectively. Hallin (1986: 110) suggested that the Cold War frame explains ‘all international conflicts in essentially the same, familiar terms, sparing the public the burden of mastering a new set of political intricacies each time a crisis erupts’.

The internal conflicts or international warfare in the pre-Cold War era were understood as a dichotomized ‘good guys’ versus ‘bad guys’ or ‘invader’ versus ‘defender’. This classification is commonly known as the ‘imperialist frame’. Herman and Chomsky (1988: 30–31) argued that:

In normal times as well as in periods of Red scares, issues tend to be framed in terms of a dichotomized world of Communist and anti-Communist powers, with gains and losses allocated to contesting sides, and rooting for ‘our side’ was considered an entirely legitimate news practice.

Even though the Cold War frame dominated public discussion and the news media for four decades, the dependence on these Cold War frames become less visible after the Soviet Union collapsed (Wasburn and Burke, 1997) and the old defunct imperialist frame resurged in the Iraq War (Ghanem, 2010) and the Kosovo War (Hammond, 2000).

After examining the use of wartime leaflets during the Korean War, Chung (2004) concluded that the war was prosecuted within the framework of the Cold War, during which ideological propaganda was mostly emphasized. He further argued that the Korean Conflict served as an international battlefield for the Cold War superpowers: the US versus the USSR and China. He also analyzed the contents of the leaflets, in which both North and South Korean governments were depicted as ‘puppet regimes’ for the respective world powers.

For example, the imperialist frame juxtaposed two scenes: Japanese soldiers who were expelled from the Korean peninsula in 1945 and Japanese soldiers who revisited the peninsula with South Korean President, Seung Man Lee, in front of US soldiers (Figure 4). This leaflet described the Korean War as another invasion by Japanese Colonialism. However, enemies were depicted as Communists and North Korean soldiers played a puppet role for Chinese and Soviet soldiers (Figure 5). Based on these examples, we pose the following research question:

RQ4: To what extent were Cold War frames used in the depiction of foreign troops during the Korean War?

Figure 4.

An example of imperialist frames (Pang, 2000).

Figure 5.

An example of the Cold War frames (Pang, 2000).

Methods

Samples

This research analyzed the Korean War leaflets in the collections of SJ Pang, as described in his Leaflets during the Korean War (Pang, 2000). Pang’s collections are based on Korean War leaflets found in the MacArthur Memorial Library & Archives and the US Army Military History Institute in Washington, DC. In his collections, Pang also added documents seized from the North Korean People’s Army (NKPA) during the Korean War after they were released from classified status. Pang’s collections mainly consisted of three parts: (1) South Korean leaflets before the war (51 units, or 10.2% of the total); (2) Allied (South Korean and American) leaflets during the war (173 units, or 34.5%); and (3) Communist (North Korean and Chinese) leaflets during the war (278 units, or 55.4%). From the whole collection, the study excluded leaflets produced before the Korean War. Even though the samples constitute a comparatively small percentage of the total number of leaflets disseminated during the War, it is generally representative of the leaflets of that time period.

Coding categories

The present study first explored the general traits of Korean War leaflets, such as circulation periods, their target audiences, and their language. The languages employed were primarily used as cues for target audiences. Then, the presence of thematic or episodic frames and the dominant frames employed were identified within the social and cultural backgrounds of the Korean soldiers and civilians targeted by the leaflets. Such framing reflects the processes of ‘crafting of cultural resonance’ through mass-mediated messages (Ettema, 2005).

Based on previous studies (Chung, 2004; Hosmer, 1996; Lee, 2006) and a preliminary test, seven frames in themes relating to the Korean War leaflets can be proposed: (1) emphasizing the puppet roles of the foreign countries or defining the war as an imperial invasion; (2) stressing the ideological aspects, such as the Communist atrocities or the malfunctions of capitalism; (3) encouraging surrender and guaranteeing hospitality after defections; (4) demoralization and stimulating homesickness or emphasizing family unity, and stressing the fear of death; (5) asking soldiers to desert, not to cooperate with opponents, and to fight against enemies; (6) issuing of warnings or giving information about the situation of the war and news about winning battles; (7) others (sending of gifts to the enemy, conflicts between blacks and whites). These frames collapsed into Snow and Benford’s (1988) functional frames: diagnostic (1 and 2), prognostic (3, 5 and 6), motivational frames (4) and others (7).

Since the Korean War developed into an international conflict right after the war broke out, it is important for this research to question how foreign countries were depicted. Here, the simple question of whether or not foreign countries or troops are mentioned as or likened to imperialists or Communists/capitalists is explored.

Inter-coder reliability

In order to check coder-agreement, two major graduate students in journalism examined a code protocol and then conducted a content analysis of 29 stories (6.4%) among 451 units. The inter-coder reliability analysis using Cohen’s kappa statistic had a coefficient of 1.00 (languages), 0.86 (target audiences), 0.87 (thematic/episodic frames), 0.87 (dominant frames), 0.84 (imperial/Cold War frames), and the overall inter-coder reliability was 0.90.

Findings

General traits of the Korean War leaflets

Almost 4 out of 10 (38.4%) of the leaflets in this research were disseminated by the Allies during the Korean War, and the other 61.6 percent were disseminated by the Communists. However, this does not mean that the North Korean or Chinese armies produced more propaganda leaflets. Nevertheless, it simply reflects the fact that Pang’s collections were based on US soldier targeted leaflets. Among the 451 units, 318 (70.5%) were written in only the Korean language and 56 units (12.4%) were written only in English. Chinese only propaganda leaflets amounted to 45 units (10.0%). In addition, two languages –such as Korean/Chinese or Korean/English – were used in 32 units (7.1%). Specifically, the Allies’ leaflets were mainly written in Korean (64.2%) and Chinese (25.4%). In turn, the Communists’ leaflets were mainly written in Korean (74.5%) and English (20.1%).

The text only leaflets constituted 43.7 percent of the total 451 units, and one fifth (22.0%) of the leaflets’ messages were expressed in drawings combined with brief captions. Photographs were employed in only 9 units (2.0%); 32.2 percent of the leaflets contained both text and photos (14.2%) or texts and drawings (18.0%). The style of expression also differed statistically, depending upon the target audiences, $Χ^{2}$ (5, N = 451) = 13.674, p < .05. Specifically, text only leaflets amounted to 35.7 percent of the 171 allied leaflets, while word only leaflets among the Communists’ leaflets made up 48.9 percent (see Table 1).

Table 1.

The traits of the Korean War leaflets (N = 451).

Categories	Sub-categories	Units (%)
Forms of expression	Words only	197 (43.7)
	Photos only	9 (2.0)
	Drawings only	99 (22.0)
	Words and photos	64 (14.2)
	Words and drawings	81 (18.0)
	Photos and drawings	1 (0.2)
Target audience	South Korean civilians	29 (6.4)
	North Korean civilians	42 (8.4)
	South Korean soldiers	160 (35.5)
	North Korean soldiers	52 (11.5)
	UN (including US) soldiers	48 (10.6)
	Chinese soldiers	59 (13.1)
	South Korean and UN soldiers	2 (0.4)
	North Korean and Chinese soldiers	64 (14.2)
	Unidentified	5 (1.1)
Thematic/episodic frame	Thematic frame	412 (91.4)
Thematic/episodic frame	Episodic frame	39 (8.6)

The fact that the Korean people suffered from a high illiteracy rate in the 1950s meant that the effectiveness of leaflets that used drawings and photos, rather than only words, increased significantly. Statistics show that over 78 percent of South Koreans were unable to read a word in 1945 (Ko, 2005). Among the 10,253,258 adults in South Korea, 7,980,922 were illiterate in 1945. Although it can be assumed that young, male soldiers had a higher literacy rate than civilians in general, pictorial presentations were more effective among the soldiers as well.

The main target audiences for the leaflets used in this research were South Korean soldiers, making up 35.5 percent of the total 451 leaflets. As mentioned above, cues for target audiences were mainly taken from the language used in the leaflets. Moreover, the terms or names used in the messages were found to be good indicators of the target audience. After the South Korean soldiers, the largest target audiences were Chinese soldiers (13.1%), North Korean soldiers (11.5%), US soldiers (10.5%), North Korean civilians (7.1%), and South Korean civilians (6.4%). The high percentage of messages targeting soldiers may have resulted from the fact that the leaflets were collected by the soldiers on the battlefield instead of by civilians behind the lines.

The thematic and episodic frames

Thematic frames (91.4%) were more widely used than episodic frames (8.6%) in the samples. The thematic frames were mainly presented with texts. Thus, they contained both assertions and information. The study found that the dominant frames were presented, depending on the thematic and episodic frames, $Χ^{2}$ (6, N = 451) = 27.56, p < .001. Specifically, the thematic frames were more frequently found in the cases of ‘encouraging surrender’ (25.5%), ‘demoralizing and stimulating homesickness’ (25.5%), ‘issuing of warnings or informing about the situation of the war’ (10.7%), and ‘emphasizing puppet roles’ (13.3%). In contrast, the episodic frames were mainly used in ‘stressing the ideological aspects’ (30.8%), ‘demoralizing and stimulating homesickness’ (28.2%), and ‘encouraging surrender’ (12.8%). Simply emphasizing Communist or capitalist ideology might not have been effective for soldiers in the battlefield. Moreover, the episodic frames were well mixed with emotions when they invoked nostalgia.

The dominant frames and functional frames

The most common frame was ‘demoralizing the soldiers’, which accounted for 25.7 percent of the total 451 units. Allies dropped these leaflets on North Korean and Chinese troops using Korean, Chinese and English text in order to stimulate homesickness or nostalgia. The second most popular frame was ‘encouraging surrender’ (24.4%) (see Table 2). An example of this frame was the ‘Safe Conduct Pass’, which was one of the most popular leaflets disseminated during the war. As an ideology frame, ‘emphasizing the puppet-master roles of other foreign powers’ (13.1%) was also an important frame of the leaflets for both sides. There were several tactics that used poisonous lies in WWII, ranging from the enemy government hiding important truths from soldiers in the frontlines, to sexual misconduct with others by the wives of soldiers left at home (Lasswell, 1971[1927]). Needless to say, enemy defeats were promptly exaggerated and prominently announced. The same tactics were exploited during the Korean War. For instance, while South Korean soldiers’ families suffered from insufficient food, Communist leaflets said that South Korean officials and American soldiers enjoyed a life of debauchery with ‘bar girls’ on 14 February 1953, which was New Year’s Day on the Korean lunar calendar.

Table 2.

Dominant frames and functional frames (N = 451).

Dominant frame(%)	Functional frame (%)	Allies’ leaflets		Communists’ leaflets
Dominant frame(%)	Functional frame (%)	Dominant frame (%)	Functional frame (%)	Dominant frame (%)	Functional frame (%)
Puppet role 59 (13.1)	Diagnostic 103 (22.8)	18 (10.4)	26 (15.0)	41 (14.7)	83 (27.7)
Ideology 44 (9.8)	Diagnostic 103 (22.8)	8 (4.6)	26 (15.0)	36 (12.9)	83 (27.7)
Surrender 110 (24.4)	Prognostic 225 (49.9)	47 (27.2)	109 (63.0)	63 (22.7)	116 (41.7)
Asking to flee 50 (11.1)		13 (7.5)		37 (13.3)
Warning notice 65 (14.4)		49 (28.3)		16 (5.8)
Demoralizing 116 (25.7)	Motivational 116 (25.7)	35 (20.2)	35 (20.2)	81 (29.1)	81 (29.1)
Others 7 (1.6)	7 (1.6)	3 (1.7)	3 (1.7)	4 (1.5)	4 (1.5)
Total: 451 (100)	451 (100)	173 (100)	173 (100)	278 (100)	278 (100)

A comparison of Allied and Communist leaflets revealed a heavily emphasized surrender frame and warning notices, while their counterparts focused on demoralization. In particular, an unbalanced proportion of warning notices were found: 28.3 percent of Allied leaflets were warning notices, but only 5.8 percent of the Communist ones. This difference may have resulted due to a difference in target audiences, i.e. the general public for the Allied leaflets as opposed to combat soldiers for the Communist ones.

Among the leaflets that targeted foreign troops (Chinese and US soldiers, rather than Korean ones), the ‘demoralization’ frame (32.3%) was more extensively used than the ‘encouraging to surrender’ frame (30.8%). In the Chinese language leaflets, demoralizing and encouraging desertion were extensively exploited (19 and 13 units, respectively). Similarly, stressing ideology (17 units), demoralizing (17 units), and encouraging desertion (13 units) were used in the English leaflets. Interestingly enough, there were no propaganda leaflets in English which emphasized the ‘puppet’ characterization. In the Korean language leaflets, while the encouraging desertion frame was most often used (103 units), other frames such as demoralizing (75 units), emphasizing the puppet role (54 units), encouraging surrender (50 units) and warning notices (48 units) were also frequent.

After considering the functions of frames, this study found that the Allies’ leaflets mainly focused on persuasion to surrender or flee from the war field, which accounted for 63 percent (109) of the total 173 leaflets. However, diagnostic frames were only 15.0 percent and moral approaches were only 20.2 percent. By contrast, diagnostic frames (27.7%) and motivational frames (29.1%) were more frequently found in Communist leaflets. At the same time, solution frames decreased to 41.7 percent.

The Cold War frame

In the case of framing foreigners and foreign countries, the imperialist frame occurred in 68 units (15.1%) and the Cold War frame was used in 26 units (5.8%) for this research sample (N = 451). South Korea and the Allies employed the Cold War frame (80.8%) more than the imperialist frame (19.2%) during the war (see Table 3). In the case of the Communists’ leaflets, the use of the imperialist frame (92.6%) overwhelmingly dominated the Cold War frame (7.4%) during the war. The research findings reflect that the Korean War was framed as a Cold War in Allied leaflets, whereas it was framed as an anti-imperialistic war in Communist leaflets. Thus, the Allies portrayed the North Korean army as a proxy for foreign Communist countries such as the Soviet Union and China. On the other hand, the Communists mainly attacked the US Army and depicted them as just another exploiting force, one that would simply replace the defeated Japanese imperialists who had recently occupied all of Korea.

Table 3.

The Cold War frame.

	Imperialist frame (%)	Cold War frame (%)	Total (%)
Allies’ leaflet	5 (19.2)	21 (80.8)	26 (100)
Communists’ leaflet	63 (93.6)	5 (7.4)	68 (100)

Not surprisingly, the language used in imperialist frame leaflets was mostly that of Korea (97.1%), which had suffered from Japanese colonial atrocities, whereas the languages used in the Cold War frame leaflets were Korean (61.5%), Chinese (30.8%) and English (7.7%). Such a discovery implies that the imperialist frame targeted Korean-speaking soldiers and civilians, while the Cold War frame was sometimes targeted at foreign soldiers, such as the Chinese and American soldiers.

Discussions and conclusion

As a prelude to the ensuing Cold War, the Korean War was the apex of psychological wars. Using the accumulated knowledge of propaganda employed during WWI and WWII, the Korean War exploited the state-of-the-art of communication studies. In particular, the airborne leaflets were the most important tools available at the time. Over 2.5 billion leaflets – a third of the total amount distributed in World War II – were scattered over the Korean peninsula in the course of the three-year war (McCorkle, 1995). These leaflets were more than simple propaganda tools. During a time when radio stations were devastated and discredited for their censorship and newspapers were not available for physical delivery, the masses of airborne leaflets played the role of an alternative news medium.

Over time, the Korean War has unfortunately lost importance to many Americans who view WWI, WWII, Vietnam, and Iraq as the only true 20th-century wars. As a result, little academic discussion has been given to propaganda leaflets of this time. Halberstam (2007) pointed out that ‘on its shelves of a library [in Key West,] were some eighty eight books on Vietnam and only four on Korea.’ In spite of numerous American soldier deaths, the early 1950s is not often referred to as the Korean War Era, but as the McCarthy Era, with the latter marking the beginning of the Cold War for most Americans (Levin, 2005).

The primary intent of the present research is to investigate the frames of propaganda leaflets distributed during the Korean War. Unlike theme analyses, frame analyses must be examined in cultural contexts because framing is a process of crafting cultural resonance (Ettema, 2005). Without cultural factors, the persuasive power of the frames used in propaganda will be overemphasized or underestimated. During the overall war period, the ‘demoralization’ (25.7%) and ‘encouraging surrender’ (24.4%) frames were the dominant frames of the leaflets. However, this study also ascertained that the main frames employed differed depending upon the target audiences and the language used. In particular, leaflets targeting foreign troops (Chinese and US soldiers) used these two frames more extensively, rising to 61.4 percent. In particular, ‘emphasizing the puppet role’ frame was not found in the English language leaflets, i.e. those targeting the US and Allied soldiers. More interestingly, 30.3 percent of the messages from English leaflets during the Korean War blamed capitalism or Wall Street businessmen.

This study challenges the pre-existing belief that the Cold War frame dominated the Korean War; Communist leaflets preferred the imperialist frame to the Cold War frame to describe and define foreign troops and foreign countries. Conversely, allies used the Cold War frame more often than the imperialist frame in their leaflets. The results reflect a Korean War framed as a Cold War in the US, and an anti-imperialist war framed in North Korea and China. The imperialist frame was more effective than the Cold War frame in the Korean peninsula because the Korean people had experienced considerable suffering under Japanese colonization over the previous 36 years, which caused a knee-jerk antipathy towards both imperialism and Japan. Furthermore, the Cold War frame was an imported concept for many Koreans, including North Korean soldiers and those who were not acquainted with the rivalry between the capitalist and Communist worlds.

The fact that the Korean War was prosecuted within the framework of the Cold War might have prompted the allies to emphasize its ideological aspects. Since the allies regarded the war as a conflict between the Free World and the totalitarian dictatorships of North Korea, China and the Soviet Union, leaflets from the allies used the Cold War frame more often than the imperialist frame in their framing of foreigners and foreign countries. However, Katz (1985) doubted the effectiveness of such ideological approaches and noted that conflicting political ideologies of war are rarely considered by people actually on the battlefield – i.e. those who were in immediate danger of death. Unlike global perceptions of the Cold War frame, North and South Korea were more likely influenced by the anti-colonialism or anti-imperialism frame (Shin and Chang, 2004). Even though both countries emphasized ethnic and racial nationalism, the resentment of foreign powers was more prominent in North Korea. Many Chinese soldiers who participated in the Korean War also recognized the Korean War as a fight against American aggression (Branigan, 2010). Based on the experiences of Japanese colonialism, any assertion against foreign powers easily gained persuasive powers among civilians during the War. Nonetheless, the strong Korean–US alliance was often emphasized by the media and political regime in order to denounce the North Korean regime and boost an economy which had heavily depended on exports to the United States.

To some extent, the Cold War frame might have been effective in persuading American citizens at home to support the war. Indeed, the Truman administration argued that ‘North Korea was a puppet of Soviet global expansionism and that the war was not really about the two Koreans, but rather about US prestige and power and the worldwide containment of Soviet communism’ (Lee, 2001: 45). In hindsight, the US military viewed the Korean War as part of the wider Cold War and preferred to use the Cold War frame in their propaganda aimed at both homeland and foreign countries. Indeed, the effectiveness of the Cold War frame on the battlefields of war is highly doubtful.

The study found that the Allies used more pictorial messages (48.9%) than the Chinese or North Koreans (35.7%). The text-only leaflets made up a little less than half of the total samples (46.2%). In spite of the low literacy rate (22%) during the 1950s, heavy reliance on text only messages suggested that the main target audiences may have not been the general public, but those opinionated leaders in Korea who were literate. To some extent, producers of the leaflets might not have accurately calculated the Korean situation. Thus, their heavy dependence on thematic frames is illustrative of the fact that the messages were produced for the message providers’ convenience, rather than for the message recipients’ interests.

This study has some limitations. First and foremost, this study used Pang’s collection of leaflets produced during the Korean War, which differs from a random sample. Thus, our findings may not represent the entire range of leaflets used during the Korean War. For example, Pang’s collection does not include leaflets that bring forth allegations that the US waged germ warfare at the beginning of 1951 (Jacobson, 2005). During the war, North Korea and the Communists accused the United States of experimenting with germ warfare on the Korean peninsula. A British journalist called the allegations against the United States ‘perhaps the most unsatisfactory story of the war’ that remains ‘as inconclusive as it was at the time’ (Knightley, 2000: 388).

Second, this study could not measure the effectiveness of war leaflets because gauging their effects during war time is impossible. Since researchers cannot access targeted audiences on the battlefield, evidence of the leaflets’ effectiveness or lack of effectiveness can only be obtained through prisoner interrogations (Herz, 1949). However, problems may arise due to the fact that many prisoners surrendered for personal reasons such as lack of food, injury or being separated from their own troops (Pease, 1992), rather than the persuasiveness of leaflets. Indeed, only 10 percent of prisoner respondents in 1951 said that they chose to surrender because of their exposure to leaflets (Kim and Johnson, 1951). In addition, peacetime experiences based on the effectiveness of the messages in the US homeland may be difficult to transfer to wartime field experiences and to different cultures (De Fleur, 1956). In view of the lack of any experimental evidence, the present study must assume that the Cold War frame may have been equally inappropriate for both Korean civilians and North Korean soldiers.

Finally, this study lacks empirical narratives from participants responsible for the production of propaganda leaflets and reactions from people who actually picked up the leaflets. Thus, any further study should be strengthened by qualitative research, such as interviews with producers of the leaflets, as well as soldiers who received the leaflets on the frontlines. Furthermore, the impact of Korean War leaflets on the development of wartime propaganda leaflets must be investigated. In this vein, comparing leaflets used in the Vietnam War (Whittaker, 1997) and the Iraq War (Clark and Christie, 2005) to those from the Korean War might be expected in order to reveal the propaganda frames and strategies in transition.

Footnotes

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author biography

Seong Choul Hong is an Assistant Professor of Journalism and Media at Kyonggi University, Seoul, Korea. His specialty is journalism, media law and political communication. He recently published ‘Do Cultural Values Matter: A Cross-Cultural Study of the Third-Person Effect and Support for the Regulation of Violent Video Games’ in Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology (June 2015) and ‘Kids Sell: Celebrity Kids’ Right to Privacy’ in Laws (April 2016). He was a print journalist in Seoul for 10 years before he received a PhD degree from Indiana University in 2013.

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