Media define and interpret problems and recommend the treatment to them in environmental communication. This function of media is named as "framing". This paper aims to investigate how the issue of climate change as a global environmental issue has been communicated at the national media, using the theory of media frame. In particular it focused on the case of North Korea. For media analysis, ‘Rodong Shinmun’ and ‘Minju Chosun’ as two major newspapers were selected. The articles carrying terms of ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’ in the title of articles were selected from1990 to 2012. The published data, places of events, cited speakers, different interest groups as victims, causers and problem solvers were coded and analyzed. Consequently the research results show four features of media frames on climate change in the North Korea. Frist, the selected articles included more foreign events and phenomena than the domestic. Second, governmental agencies, politicians, international organizations and scientists were represented as major speakers in the selected articles. In particular, instructions by Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il occupied the half of the statements by domestic speakers. Third, the diagnostic frame with description of victims and causers was dominant in the selected articles. Since 2007 the prognostic frame with representation of problem solvers was distinctly formed. Fourth, Rhodong Shinmun represented more various voices of the actors and interest groups as victims, causers and helpers to the problem of climate change than Minju Chosun.

북한 미디어에 나타난 기후변화 프레임 :로동신문과 민주조선을 중심으로

Environment, Politics, and Ideology in North Korea: Landscape as Political Project

New Year's Editorial

During the mid- and late 1990s in North Korea, a period marked by the “Arduous March”, discourse shifted from “conquering” the natural environment to “rationally using and protecting” it. It is arg...

Sunhye Heo

Papers

Discourses on the Natural Environment in North Korea: Changing Regime Dynamics in the 1990s