Seoul  - North Koreans are watching South Korean-made film and TV drama DVDs in growing numbers, challenging the iron-fisted media control that has effectively isolated 23 million North Koreans from the outside world.

North Korea observers in Seoul estimate that a trickle of the media influx into the otherwise isolated North Koreans has become a stream, despite harsh penalties for those who violate censorship rules.

In a 2007 survey by the US-based NGO Intermedia of 220 North Korean defectors, one in every five North Koreans watches foreign DVDs, most of which are South Korean.

Only a few years ago, such a stable media inflow had been unthinkable in the communist country where the iron-tight media control has never been relaxed in the past decades.

The change began occurring at local marketplaces that have been springing up across the nation spontaneously after Pyongyang began to reduce the food ration and instead allows the local merchants to trade with China, according to a report by Chosun Weekly magazine.

North Korean merchants, who commute to China, are no longer blind to external news.

"These marketplaces are not only places of trading goods but also a place of exchanging external information," said a South Korean media analyst in an interview with the Chosun Weekly.

Tight information control is becoming elusive as more North Koreans crossing back and forth between North Korea and China and South Korea.

While a minority of those who flee North Korea defect to South Korea or China, many of them are known to have sneaked back to their homes in North Korea for family reasons.

"Once they are in China, North Koreans will be shocked by the difference between their reality at home and that in South Korea," said a North Korean observer in Seoul.

In South Korea, almost every home has a broadband connection and almost everyone including children have a cell phone. In North Korea, there is only one legitimate TV channel and one radio channel.

Owning foreign DVDs carries a high risk. "Once North Koreans are caught in the marketplace (with DVDs) they will be arrested and will probably be executed," said one analyst in Seoul.

Once exposed to how different the outside world is, however, North Koreans will never be the same.

"Making money is finding more importance in the minds of North Korean people who would otherwise continue to chant praises of their great leader Kim Jong-Il," said another North Korean watcher in Seoul. (dpa)