North Korea and the Politics of Visual Representation

David Shim and Dirk Nabers

No 164, GIGA Working Papers from GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies

Abstract: Within international discourses on security, North Korea is often associated with risk and danger, emanating paradoxically from what can be called its strengths - particularly military strength, as embodied by its missile and nuclear programs - and its weaknesses - such as its ever-present political, economic, and food crises - which are considered to be imminent threats to international peace and stability. We argue that images play an important role in these representations, and suggest that one should take into account the role of visual imagery in the way particular issues, actions, and events related to North Korea are approached and understood. Reflecting on the politics of visual representation means to examine the functions and effects of images, that is what they do and how they are put to work by allowing only particular kinds of seeing. After addressing theoretical and methodological questions, we discuss individual (and serial) photographs depicting what we think are typical examples of how North Korea is portrayed in the Western media and imagined in international politics.

Keywords: visual representation; synecdoche; identity; North Korea (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/47846/1/656908157.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:gigawp:164

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in GIGA Working Papers from GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().