A Distant Reading of the Korean Central News Agency’s Headlines
&gt; The entire Chongryon-hosted enterprise thus seems almost completely devoid of informational and propaganda value today, if it ever had any; it is a classic example of “propaganda without readers.” [...] we can try to make sense of KCNA stories [...] simply as the nearly automatic manifestation of the North Korean state’s own commitments to itself<p>North Korean propaganda is so obvious and so stupid by our standards that it seems ridiculous anyone would listen to it, like the article points.<p>But there is something there for us to learn as well about our propaganda. which is less obvious. By now I think nobody can pretend that mass media is unbiased. I think before elections, for some channels one could squint and give them a benefit of the doubt at least.<p>The media served as this persuasion machine for many years (unlike the North Korean site mentioned here). It was never unbiased, but we one could almost pretend it was. However then something interesting happened when the curtain was lifted too much. It simply became too obvious and impossible to ignore. They went and started unilaterally backing only one candidate in the elections, hired operatives from their party, anchors donated large sums of money to that candidate, passed debate notes back and forth, etc. As a result even traditional large media empires found themselves regarded pretty much as the North Korean propaganda by the majority of the population.<p>You&#x27;d think they realize and stop. But they didn&#x27;t and I claim they won&#x27;t.  That is what is fascinating, they keep marching on further and further. In a sense just like this site, the people writing there keep pumping those headlines even though the world is laughing at them. You&#x27;d think for example Chris Cuomo from CNN would sort of have this apology and say the whole &quot;documents are illegal for you to read, but is different for the media, come to use for interpretation&quot; was a dumb thing to say and how it made the whole channel look silly and so on. But he didn&#x27;t and never will. And it makes more sense in the light of this article, this kind of propaganda is largely literature aimed not at persuasion but at reassurance of those who already believe and mostly also as literature and signaling among the media creators themselves. What the outside world thinks, doesn&#x27;t matter anymore.