North Korea’s Nuclear Cinema: Simulation and Neoliberal Politics in the Two Koreas

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.

Elizabeth Shim is United Press International’s Chief Asia Writer, co-author of Korean War in Colour and a contributor to Media Technologies for Work and Play. Shim reported for The Associated Press. She graduated from Wellesley in 1999 and completed a joint MA in journalism and East Asian studies at NYU, where she was a departmental fellow at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute.