Three generations of the Kim family have ruled North Korea with absolute authority since 1948, and analysts say the regime has used carefully crafted images to ensure their power.
Outsiders regard Kim as a ruthless tyrant with an undying obsession about developing the countrys nuclear weapons, even at the cost of starving the population. But North Koreas tightly-controlled state media shows something softer: Kim caressing weeping orphans, being mobbed by gushing female soldiers, or smiling broadly on a mound of potatoes.
The images that the regime chooses to disseminate and weave into Kims hagiography say a lot about how Kim envisions North Koreas future and his place in it, wrote Jung Pak, now a US deputy assistant secretary of state, in a 2018 report before she took up her current post.
In his frequent public appearances, Kim is seen giving guidance at various economic, military, and social venues, just as his father and grandfather did. In marked contrast, he is also shown pulling weeds, riding rollercoasters, operating a tank, or galloping on a horse.
Kim appears to want to reinforce the impression that he is young, vigorous, on the move qualities that he attributes to his country as well, Pak said in the Brookings Institution report.
Carefully crafted photographs and films were a universal part of politics to win public support, said Michael Madden, fellow at the Stimson Center, but Pyongyangs propaganda had different motives.
In North Korea, it is not a matter of being responsive to public opinion, but influencing how citizens view or regard the leadership.
Image was particularly important to Kim when he was rushed into power after the death of his father Kim Jong-il on 17 December 2011, said Jean Lee, senior fellow at the Wilson Center. He inherited leadership at a time when he was young and a virtual unknown to his own people. Madden added that the regime launched an emulation campaign early on, with the young leader adopting the clothing and haircut of his grandfather, North Koreas founder Kim Il-sung.
The striking resemblance between the two even fuelled international speculation that the younger Kim intentionally put on weight to increase the likeness. The strategy was to cast him as a modern reincarnation of his much-beloved grandfather in looks, personality and policy to justify his right to rule, Lee said.
Kims weight which rose significantly after he took power before dropping sharply this year has regularly prompted questions about his health.
But analysts say that images carried by North Koreas official KCNA news agency or the Rodong Sinmun newspaper have a wider purpose beyond aesthetics.
In October 2019, North Korean media published pictures of Kim riding a white horse through a winter landscape to the summit of the sacred Mount Paektu. The motif has been recurrent in images of Kims predecessors but some North Korea watchers saw the pictures as a signal for a new policy direction.
They came during stalled US-North Korea talks after a failed second summit between Kim and the then US president, Donald Trump, and Madden described them as anti-imperialist imagery. The photos carried the message that North Korea will not be pushed around or intimidated by big power countries, he added.
Impoverished North Korea is under international sanctions over its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes, and has long suffered chronic food shortages. The country is facing its worst economic crisis for years, hit by both sanctions and its self-imposed coronavirus blockade.
In recent months, pictures of the leader have shown his acute weight loss, playing into Kims image of being more accountable to the people, according to Jenny Town, senior fellow at the Stimson Center. The official Korean Central Television aired a rare interview with an unnamed citizen saying the people were heartbroken over the change in his physique and that everyone just started to cry at the sight of Kim.
The images were aimed at showing that sacrifices are being made at a time of hardship for the country, Town said but added that their effectiveness was unknown.
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Rollercoasters, horses and weight loss: 10 years of Kim Jong-un image politics - The Guardian
