The aim of this study is to illuminate how totalitarian dictatorships, in this case North Korea, are assumed to handle culture and how the culture functions in such societies. Focus is placed on how South Korean press portrays the North Korean regime’s approach to South Korean popular culture and on how differences between the two countries in relation to culture are presented in the material. The used method is qualitative content analysis of 19 news articles from two South Korean news sites, Daily NK and The Korea Times. Results from this study show that South Korean press portrays the North Korean regime as paranoid over the spread of South Korean influences in the country as well as viewing the influx of such materials as dangerous and harmful. Results also show that the news articles depict two wildly different portrayals of North Korea and South Korea, depending on whose perspective the portrayal is from. Conclusions from this study include the South Korean news articles portraying a North Korean regime that is acting in accordance with descriptions of totalitarian dictatorships. Both the South Korean portrayal of South Korea and the North Korean portrayal of North Korea can also be described as propaganda, although the South Korean one a considerably milder form, describing them as utopian-like societies.