North Korean flag mistake at London Olympics and misperceptions of Korea

I must confess that I was only slightly surprised to learn that the North Korean women's soccer game against Colombia had been delayed because of the mistaken display of South Korea's flag on a big screen in the stadium which was used to introduce North Korea's players.  Reuters and other major media published a photo illustrating the problem (click on the photo to see a full-size version).  The reason I was only mildly surprised is that public misperceptions of Korea are rather widespread around the world, especially in the West.  I'm sure that survey data would show quite a large number of people  are unaware of the difference between North and South Korea, or even that Korea is divided.  Readers may be interested in my earlier posts on the topic of Korea's national image (e.g. here,)