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[Servant Corps]

Source
(The graph goes up to 2006, which is the latest Gallup poll on US' favorablity ratings towards Libya)

I compared North Korea to Libya because of the strange fact that North Korea starts off with a far higher favorablity rating than Libya (in 2000, North Korea's total favorable rating is 26%, versus an unfavorable rating of 63%), yet North Korea began suffering a slide in favorablity ratings (after the Axis of Evil speech which lumped North Korea with that of Iraq and Iran, two already unfavorable countries) while Libya began a slow climb upwards. It is also to highlight a possible explanation for these two results: favorablity ratings for NK and Libya were high because of a deal signed by the United States with those regimes.

But there's also something much more important about Libya. The blogosphere has been active over reports that American intellectuals being paid to defend Libya. Though North Korea did also pay money to have good PR in United States (notably buying ads in the NYT), the ads seemed geared towards internal consumption and internal legitimacy as opposed to actually trying to sway Americans. Could the Monitor Group (the public relations firm that attempted to rehabilitate Qaddafi's image)  be at least somewhat partially responsible for the increased favorablity rating of Libya (and decreased unfavorablity ratings)? Or is it solely due to Libya no longer being in the news and giving up its WMD program (like how North Korea had a high favorablity for giving up WMDs)?

Quite frankly, I don't know. That's why I'm asking you to provide explanations for this. Thanks for that.

Post Script: I understand that one way to explain North Korea's high favorablity rating is the fact that Americans might confuse North Korea for South Korea, and I don't know how best to test if this was indeed the case before the Axis of Evil Speech. I do however have evidence that US' favorablity ratings of North Korea is influenced slightly by partisan divides in 2005, though this divide was all but erased by 2007.

[nenjin]

Post Script: I understand that one way to explain North Korea's high favorablity rating is the fact that Americans might confuse North Korea for South Korea, and I don't know how best to test if this was indeed the case before the Axis of Evil Speech. I do however have evidence that US' favorablity ratings of North Korea is influenced slightly by partisan divides in 2005, though this divide was all but erased by 2007.

Well, here's the question they asked (Re: Libya):

Next, I'd like your overall opinion of some foreign countries. What is your overall opinion of [country]? Very favorable, most favorable ect..

They're not making a distinction between the nation of Libya, the people of Libya, the government of Libya or the dictator of Libya. Asked today, you'd get distinctly different answers on each of those questions. Personally, from 2001 to 2006, I think it's an issue of bigger, badder bogeymen making Libya look better. Libya's rep in the US comes quite a bit from the 80s, and some of the people in the survey probably weren't even born then, AND have lived through 9/11.

Does that explain why it went up? Not really. But I find it hard to believe that paid intellectuals actually managed to influence the people that Gallup polls reach. Am I surprised a dictator hired people to repair/enhance their image internationally? No. But I don't think there's a 1:1 relationship between the Monitor Group's work and the result of this poll. They're targeting policy makers, not the American public. And I haven't seen any ads prior to 2011 for vacationing in Libya.

[Nospherat]

I... don't know if I can trust those ratings, or any other ratings. I will not go as far as to claim those numbers are "engineered", but I do believe that if someone has a genuine interest in something that Lybia has to offer, then Lybia is going to get trashed, even if the approval ratings are sky high.

I have learned not to blindly trust all the news I read, but rather to remember them, let time pass, and at some point, I'll put two and two together, eventually.
For instance, at the beginning at this conflict I was wandering just why is France so ... impetuous. And so bent on getting involved in all this.
A few days later, one tabloid stated that France is using this conflict to promote its jet fighters.
I'm not saying that's true. I'm just saying I'll keep that in mind.

Back to the subject at hand.
Another news I read said that Muammar Ghaddafi was rather open to commerce with the  rest of the worlds (especially America) despite his frequent rants... hm. Better make that "discourses".
That, and the fact that I haven't really seen Libia in the news prior to this... nonsense...
I think there's your rating increase.
*shrug*

As for North Korea... well, they're rather brash and lately they have been brandishing their weapons a lot.
I have seen at least four documentaries about North Korea lately... and they weren't exactly favorable.

And well... ho-hum... how should I put this without sounding offensive?
North Korea has a brighter shade of red. That's been known to upset certain nations.