Pop culture for peace

This recent article from Fast Company caught our eye, as it detailed how The Flash Drives For Freedom project secretly sends cultural content across the border of North Korea. Many defectors have said that watching bootleg copies of films such as Titanic and South Korean soap operas totally changed how they saw the regime and made them realise how much they were being controlled. All of the content sent over is illegal, possession of them is a capital crime, and yet ‘people are willing to pay a week’s wages for them and risk being caught either selling them or with them.”

This got us thinking; what kind of pop culture would we send across to North Korea? Not to send a political message, not to educate, not to convert to our way of thinking – but just to entertain. Just to show off the very best of our cultural universe. (It’s a similar idea to what you what show an alien to teach them about life on earth.)

We came up with a list of ground rules:

1. No politics.
2. No education.
3. No lofty ideals.

Bearing this in mind we did a straw poll amongst our team to uncover what they would share, as the ultimate piece of pulpy entertainment.
A first round of suggestions included:

Let us know what your ultimate piece of pop culture for peace would be in the comments!

You can also visit the Flash Drives For Freedom project here to donate your old flash drives.

By Hannah Robbins, Cultural Insight team Kantar Added Value