South Korean Propaganda Tactics: Encouraging Hostility Despite Familial Ties
South Korea has developed a comprehensive set of propaganda strategies designed to reinforce public support for military preparedness and, if necessary, hostility toward North Korea—even though many South Koreans have familial connections across the border. The cornerstone of these efforts has been a persistent anti-communist narrative, established since the country’s founding and hardened after the Korean War, which characterizes the North Korean regime as an existential threat to South Korea’s security, prosperity, and democratic values. To maintain a unified and prepared populace, the South Korean government utilizes an array of modern media, including television, radio, cinema, print, and the internet, to disseminate antagonistic portrayals of North Korea. Large-scale psychological and information campaigns have been conducted through the use of loudspeakers along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), where messages—including anti-regime broadcasts, South Korean and international news, and even popular K-pop music—are blared toward the North. Balloon drops carrying propaganda leaflets, USB drives with South Korean media, and US dollars aim to demoralize Northern troops and civilians, sowing distrust of their government and presenting the South as prosperous and free.
Crucially, these propaganda messages do not acknowledge the shared history and close familial bonds between South and North Koreans but instead represent the North as fundamentally different, aggressive, and responsible for the peninsula’s continuing division. The government further cements support among the public by highlighting South Korea’s democratic identity, economic achievements, and Western alliances, implicitly (and often explicitly) framing reconciliation or sympathy for the North as a security risk or betrayal of national identity. At the societal level, media and popular culture frequently dramatize themes of division, but these are commonly shaped to reinforce the South’s moral and developmental superiority and to rationalize, rather than humanize, the separation from northern relatives. South Korean education and public messaging often emphasize North Korea’s provocations (such as missile launches), human rights abuses, and leadership cult, while downplaying the costs of military escalation or the suffering of separated families.
Propaganda’s Diffusion into Western Societies
The narrative constructed by South Korean government propaganda—to cast North Korea as the perennial aggressor and itself as the democratic victim deserving of global support—has permeated Western societies, primarily through diplomatic channels, cultural exports, and the global media ecosystem. During and after the Korean War, South Korea, often in concert with the United States, actively collaborated in the creation and dissemination of propaganda materials emphasizing the “truth” of Western freedom against communist oppression—including testimonies from defectors and prisoners of war preferring life under the South Korean or United Nations banner. In subsequent decades, South Korean narratives have largely aligned with the interests and frameworks of Western allies, especially the United States, magnifying portrayals of North Korea as a dangerous, unpredictable, and militarized threat to regional and global order. This framing is echoed and amplified by Western governments, media, and even popular culture, so much so that international reporting on the Korean conflict frequently adopts South Korea’s perspective uncritically, presenting the North’s actions as aggressive and unjustified while justifying South Korean and allied responses as necessary or defensive.
South Korea’s global cultural influence, through the “Korean Wave” (Hallyu)—including music, cinema, and beauty products—has served as soft power, reinforcing its image as a modern, vibrant democracy and deflecting attention from its divisions or militarism. These soft power strategies, though generally designed to boost national pride and economic competitiveness, also contribute to a global narrative in which South Korea is seen as the “good Korea,” further securing political, economic, and military support from Western powers, especially in times of renewed tensions or crises. This international image buttresses South Korea’s development by encouraging investment, tourism, and technological exchange, while marginalizing challenges to its versions of history and current policy.
Developmental and Lifestyle Gaps Between North and South Korea
The two Koreas, once united in language and culture, are now among the most dramatic examples globally of divergent social, economic, and developmental trajectories. South Korea has transformed since the 1960s into one of the world’s most advanced and wealthy societies, with high GDP per capita, cutting-edge technological infrastructure, globally recognized brands, near-universal internet access, and a democratic government ensuring broad personal freedoms. The average life expectancy in South Korea is above 80 years, infant mortality is below 5 per 1,000 live births, and comprehensive healthcare and education systems foster a high standard of living. South Koreans enjoy considerable mobility, consumer choice, freedom of expression, and access to world markets and culture.
North Korea, in stark contrast, operates under a command economy and an authoritarian regime where resources are heavily concentrated on the military, and access to food, healthcare, and consumer goods is restricted. Life expectancy is roughly a decade shorter than in the South, infant mortality is at least five times higher, and the population faces persistent food insecurity, limited infrastructure, and frequent power outages. Civil liberties are extremely limited, and the state tightly regulates information, movement, and cultural life. Ordinary North Koreans’ contact with the outside world is almost nonexistent, as is their access to goods and services considered basic in the South.
Psychological Distance and Blindness to Familial Suffering
The profound developmental rift and stark lifestyle differences between the two Koreas have played a major role in the formation of South Korean attitudes—sometimes creating a psychological distance that makes it easier for citizens to accept antagonistic policies, even against relatives in the North. For many in the South, daily reality is defined by economic opportunity, technological innovation, global travel, and exposure to open media, all of which contrast strongly with the imagined, often negative, portrayal of life in the North. This gap is continuously reinforced both by propaganda and by practical absence of personal contact, as direct exchanges across the border remain rare and highly controlled.
Government messaging and cultural narratives further cement this divide, with portrayals of North Korea as dangerous and backward serving not only state security objectives but also rationalizing the costs of ongoing confrontation, including forced conscription and the continued separation of families. In a society focused on advancement and international prestige, many South Koreans are distanced from the painful reality that millions of families remain separated by policies they tacitly or actively support. These blind spots are reinforced as the dominant narrative emphasizes the South’s prosperity and moral rightness, downplays or ignores the humanitarian consequences of division, and celebrates consumer and technological progress as markers of success. Consequently, meaningful empathy for northern relatives is often replaced with anxiety over security threats or paternalistic concern, rather than solidarity for shared suffering.
While some South Korean media and public debates do acknowledge the Korean nation as one people, vulnerable to tragic division, such discourse is frequently subordinated to messages of vigilance, identity, and superiority—making reconciliation or acknowledgement of complicity in familial pain less likely in the wider society.
Conclusion
Through a sophisticated system of media, culture, and education, the South Korean government has successfully used propaganda to maintain societal willingness to oppose North Korea militarily—even at the cost of sustaining the painful division of families. By exporting this narrative to Western audiences, South Korea not only obtains essential support for its security and prosperity but also shields itself from critical reflection on the human costs of its policies. The developmental and societal gaps that now define the two Koreas facilitate a form of collective psychological distancing, making it easier for South Koreans to accept or ignore the continued suffering of their relatives in the North. In sum, propaganda, socio-economic divergence, and international alliances mutually reinforce an environment in which hostile postures and familial estrangement are not only politically viable but normalized across generations.
