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BYU Asian Studies Student Journal

Keywords

North Korean propaganda, Confucian family structure, Kim dynasty authority

Abstract

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (D.P.R.K. or the state), as one of the most isolated and controlled states in Asia, has since its founding attempted to shape the culture and ideology surrounding the family construct to support the rule of the socialist regime and its leaders, the Eternal President, Kim Il Sung, and his successors. In Korea, like the rest of East Asia, the traditional family unit has been a central societal structure for centuries. Largely based upon Confucianism, the nuclear family—referring generally to the biological family unit of parents and children—has determined not only the lifestyle and livelihood of individuals through social classes and familial practices but also has affected the political structures of this region’s major powers, of which the D.P.R.K. is no different. Like other revolutionary socialist regimes of the 20th century, North Korea has used propaganda in many forms to educate on, reinforce, and expand the core rhetorical pillars that support the Kim dynasty’s authoritarian right to rule. Although relatively rare, images of the nuclear family in North Korean state visual propaganda depict the “ideal” family which establishes motherhood as model patriotism and the Kim family’s parental role within North Korean society, being one unified Korean socialist egalitarian family unit led by Kim Il-Sung and the state, subverting the patriarchal hierarchy of the traditional East Asian family construct.

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