North Korea's Nuclear Cinema - by Elizabeth Shim (Hardcover)

About the Book

"What exactly is the North Korean nuclear threat? Why is North Korea engaging in hostilities when its erstwhile adversaries have offered a diplomatic exit ramp? This book introduces new ways of understanding North Korea's provocations within the context of changing media technologies. Chapter by chapter, it explains how North Korea's footage-based nuclear politics is presented as military practice to promote the image of North Korea as a nuclear power, but ultimately traces its lineage to cinematic propaganda, a tradition that blurs the line between image and reality"--

Book Synopsis

North Korea's Nuclear Cinema examines why and how North Korea has transitioned to an image-based nuclear power in the changing context of a post-Cold War world. What exactly is the North Korean nuclear threat? Why is North Korea engaging in hostilities when its erstwhile adversaries have offered a diplomatic exit ramp? Chapter by chapter, it explains how North Korea's footage-based nuclear politics is presented as military practice, but ultimately traces its lineage to cinematic propaganda, a tradition that blurs the line between image and reality.

By leveraging cinematic resources in place of physical military mobilization, North Korea continues to move international political actors with the mere suggestion of nuclear power. At a moment when North Korea is enhancing media representation, this book dives into a timely exploration of how the regime is projecting state power as South Korean televisual media challenges the North Korean communist spectacle that has held a captive audience for decades.

Review Quotes

A brilliant study of the role of media, technology, and propaganda in the shaping of modern North Korea. Shim's book puts North Korea's image and national identity at the forefront of the nation's behavior and asks questions about what that means for an increasingly interconnected future. As the world grapples with issues of propaganda and reality, North Korea's Nuclear Cinema offers lessons for students and policymakers alike.
Mitch Lerner, Director of the East Asian Studies Center, The Ohio State University

Elizabeth Shim is perhaps the most well-informed U.S. reporter on Korean politics, international relations, and media. Drawing upon her extensive knowledge and depth of insight, her book North Korea's Nuclear Cinemaseamlessly weaves together modern North Korean history, international relations and politics, North Korean film history, and film interpretation. Its ambition sets it apart in the small but growing corpus of scholarship on North Korean cinema. Written in readable prose, the book is accessible to lay readers, who have interests in the reclusive nation, yet it has the requisite historical and theoretical depth to be relevant to Koreanists and to film historians.
David C. Oh, Editor of "Mediating the South Korean Other: Representations and Discourses of Difference in the Post/Neocolonial Nation-State"

Film, media and other forms of visual communication are central to life in the 20th and 21st centuries. Yet, they have rarely been explored in the context of North Korea's domestic politics and society as well as its foreign policy. In this intriguing book, Elizabeth Shim explains the many ways in which North Korea's regime uses and is influenced by its own visual narratives, as well as the importance of South Korean globally recognised culture in shaping both North Korean society and the country's leadership. This is recommended reading for anyone with an interest in the intersection of visual communication and North Korea and global politics.
Ramon Pacheco Pardo, Professor of International Relations at King's College London

About the Author

Elizabeth Shim was a Center for Strategic and International Studies Korea Chair Nextgen Scholar, is currently Senior Principal at Haven Tower Group and previously United Press International's Chief Asia Writer. She has written for The Associated Press, USA Today, the Toronto Star and the South China Morning Post and is co-author of The Korean War in Color (2011).