Providing North Korean people with correct information about their leaders and the outside world is one of the most effective ways to bring about change in the communist regime, the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman said Tuesday.

"One of the issues that I'm looking at is what we can do to broadcast into North Korea more effectively. Radio broadcast, social media, pushing cheap wave transistor radios and low-cost communications, DVDs. Right now, South Korean DVDs, soap operas are very popular in North Korea," Rep. Ed Royce from California told reporters.

"Allowing more people to learn the truth about what's happening in North Korea, and in South Korea and the rest of the world, could be very important in pushing for the kinds of changes in North Korea that lead to more tolerance," he said.

Royce spoke to reporters after receiving a friendship award from the Korean-American Association in recognition of his contribution to relations between the two countries.

Control of outside information has propped up the regime in Pyongyang. That's why the North bristled strongly at South Korea's resumption last month of loudspeaker broadcasts along the border and even fired artillery shells into the South.

Under a landmark peace agreement, however, the South later suspended the border broadcasts in exchange for the North expressing regret over injuries South Korean soldiers sustained from an explosion of land mines planted in the demilitarized zone by the North.

Royce called for changes in the North.

"It is our hope that North Korea will have a change in attitude. If they have a change in attitude, then of course, a brilliant future is available to all of the people on the Korean peninsula, a future of opportunity," he said. "But in the meantime, America stands partly as a deterrent. We stand as a deterrent to keep North Korea from escalating provocations." (Yonhap)