A New Frontier for North Korean Human Rights Activism? A qualitative case study on North Korean defector-activist Park Yeonmi and her use of social media

Abstract: The present thesis sought to inspect the yet-unexplored digital dimension of North Korean human rights activism, aiming to uncover the strategic digital communication wielded by a selected case study. The research was thus based on an explorative qualitative inquiry of the social media activity of Park Yeonmi, one of the most renowned North Korean defectoractivists in the West. A total of 90 elements were consequently collected from the subject's Facebook, Instagram and YouTube official accounts and analyzed through inductive qualitative content analysis. The findings revealed how Park Yeonmi favors YouTube for her activist work, where she assiduously publishes political commentaries and exposés of human rights violations. On Facebook and Instagram, alternatively, the defector activist prefers to share content related to her private and everyday life, bridging the distance with her followers and establishing a friendly and intimate connection. Nevertheless, in both cases it could be observed how Park Yeonmi makes a strong use of communication strategies commonly employed by microcelebrities (most notably interconnectedness and authenticity), striving to create a strong and affectionate community around her persona in order to strategically garner the attention of the followers and direct it to her activist cause. These findings eventually lead to associate Park Yeonmi’s digital work to the one of a Networked Microcelebrity Activist, according to Tufekci’s (2013) theorization.