The ‘Kim Jong-un Effect’ and the mainstreaming of North Korea coverage in UK Media

Abstract

This article uses qualitative and quantitative methods to analyse the entire corpus of news articles published about North Korea by six major UK national newspapers from 2000 to 2020. It offers insights on how North Korea evolved from a relatively obscure subject to a mainstay in the world news section, particularly for the tabloids. Coverage grew exponentially, led by not only stories about nuclear development and missile programmes, but also by soft news items like football, and tourism. Notably, the tone of coverage shifted after Kim Jong-un came to power in 2011, leading to an explosion of stories focussed on the young leader and his family. Structural topic modelling reveals 12 key topic areas among elite and tabloid media. While elite media coverage spanned a wider range of subjects, tabloid media largely focussed on three topics: missiles, the Kim family, and football. Each theme was highly compatible with the traditions of tabloid coverage, supplying eye-catching images (missiles and Kim’s eccentric appearance), a ‘royal family’ of sorts, and sports (North Koreans’ feats during World Cup). Furthermore, qualitative analysis demonstrates that while tabloidization and sensationalistic reporting on the Kim family largely drove the increase in coverage, such stories also added colour and depth previously lacking in reportage on the enemy regime, thereby making the portrayal of North Korea more multidimensional.