Content area
Full Text
NORTH KOREA'S HIDDEN REVOLUTION: How the Information Underground Is Transforming a Closed Society. By Jieun Baek. New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2016. xxvi, 282pp. (Maps, illustrations.) US$30.00, cloth. ISBN978-0-300-21781-0.
An influx of outside information coming in via USB sticks, radio broadcasts, DVDs, and more is changing the way many North Koreans see themselves and the world. Jieun Baek, a PhD candidate in public policy at the University of Oxford and a former research fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs (Harvard University), draws on ten in-depth interviews with resettled defectors in South Korea to describe a network of smugglers, defectors, border guards, and information bootleggers working to get information into North Korea.
The book is organized into six chapters. Chapter 1 explores what makes North Korea's political system so durable, namely the regime's ability to control information. Chapters 2 through 4 are devoted to explaining the "information underground," or how information bound for North Korea is curated, packaged, transmitted, and received. Chapter 5 considers the significance of the spread of information in the post-famine era and chapter 6 concludes the book with a summary and call to action.
The central concern of the book is timely and relevant: What are the social and political effects of media flows in a politically unfree society where information is tightly controlled? For those seeking regime change, flooding North Korea with information that runs contrary to the state-crafted message is seen...