Watching North Koreans Watch South Koreans

I still remember the death of the previous North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in December 2011, for the simple reason that media outlets played ad nauseum footage, procured from North Korea’s state news agency KCNA, of Pyongyang citizens weeping with abandon. It seemed as though North Koreans were so brainwashed, or so fearful of crossing the state, that they would cry for a tyrannical ruler as if their own parent had died. These moments of grief were widely used in media, both international and