It’s Been a Long, Long Time: Now What?
Continuing my BlogBlogProject, in which I publish student voices from courses I teach at the University of Delaware, here is a college student’s analysis of agenda setting and framing about North Korea by the President and by American media. University of Delaware Junior Kelly Donohue is a Communication major with minors in Political Communication, English, and Environmental Humanities.
Little Rocket Man. That is the nickname President Trump so eloquently chose for North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un last summer amidst multiple missile tests that raised tensions on the Korean Peninsula. At the time, it felt like the potential for nuclear war was higher than it had been any time in my life. As recently as this January President Trump was tweeting about the size of his nuclear button, which made me imagine it to be a big red button on his desk like the Staples easy button; I really hope it’s not that. For years all the coverage of Kim Jong Un cast him as an unstable strongman ruling over a poor, sick, and hungry population. There were stories of him blowing up his most trusted advisors with anti-aircraft guns or poisoning family members to solidify his grip on power, and even fictional movies that plotted his death. But something seems to have changed recently, and it’s incredibly confusing to watch.
Recently, South Korean President Moon Jae-In met with Kim Jong Un to discuss ending the Korean war — which has dragged on now for nearly 70 years — and shutting down North Korea’s nuclear test sites. There were videos of the two men meeting at the border and Kim Jong Un crossing into South Korean territory for the first time. I had trouble understanding my own reaction to the footage because it was genuinely heartwarming, and that is absolutely not how I would’ve described any of the previous coverage I’ve seen about Kim Jong Un.
To add to the confusion, President Trump recently remarked that Mr. Kim is “very honorable,” and his Cabinet has worked to set up a meeting between the two men to help broker peace and denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula, now scheduled for June 12 (recently disrupted by Kim Jong Un’s threat to call off the summit). The South Korean President and others have even suggested that President Trump should receive the Nobel Peace Prize for the role he has played.
It has felt dissonant to watch these events unfold over the past few weeks, given the frame the media has used to portray North Korea — and specifically Kim Jong Un — until now. We have been primed to react negatively at the slightest mention of North Korea. We were so scared of a missile attack just months ago that there was coverage on CNN and other outlets that diagrammed the potential range of the missiles U.S. intelligence knew North Korea possessed. Now our President, who threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea while speaking to the UN, is planning to travel to the Korean Peninsula on a diplomatic mission to create lasting peace. The prior agenda that had been set was staunchly anti-North Korea, and suddenly the agenda is to make peace and play nice. The public isn’t quite so fast to switch positions, and that is what will be most interesting to watch.
Donald Trump presented information and provoked awareness of North Korean aggression to set a hard line against them in the Fall of 2017. Now he has presented new, different information which has created a new, different awareness of what is happening with North Korea. The agenda was set, and now it has shifted dramatically. The question now becomes whether public opinion will change along with the new political and media agenda.
Certainly looking at the news coverage of North Korea this past week has made me question many of the things I thought I knew. To truly know if public opinion will swing towards North Korea will take time; first there must be this meeting between President Trump and Kim Jong Un. But if you had told me in January that the leaders of North and South Korea had met and discussed peace and that Donald Trump had stopped calling Kim Jong Un “Little Rocket Man,” I probably wouldn’t have believed you.
This is becoming a very interesting case study in agenda setting and public opinion, and how we negotiate cognitive dissonance. If a peace treaty is agreed upon, will that alter how Americans view North Korea? If we reconcile this cognitive dissonance and public opinion does change, could that in turn drive the agenda to provide aid to North Korea? There are many, many questions about what happens next, but for now I’m just enjoying not feeling the existential dread that the world is going to end in a nuclear inferno. Listening to Elton John is fun again.
This blog was written for Dr. Hoffman’s Media and Politics class by University of Delaware Communication junior Kelly Donohue, who is also minoring in Political Communication, English, and Environmental Humanities.
