摘要：The political economy of media not only looks into power from ownershipperspective but also explain news in top-down decision-making order. Thispaper is based on the application of Herman and Chomsky’s (1988)propaganda model to explain the privatization of media sector in Pakistan andthe relationship of this unprecedented change to secondary and ground levelsinfluences upon journalists working in a conflict zone. With the help of sevenin-depth interviews with displaced tribal journalists reporting on the USledwar-on-terror fought against militants in the northwestern Pakistan, thispapers finds the model helpful in providing insight into macro-leveldevelopments i.e., commercialization of media and the concentration of mediato serve interests of those ruling at the top. Weakness of the model, as thestudy finds, is the lack of vocabulary to use for micro-level developments,understanding and approach to develop insight into the social and culturalforces affecting media labor and influencing their working interests in reportingon a conflict zone. The outcome of this lack is, first, the absence of insight intodecision-making dynamics between media elites and working journalists onthe ground. Second, the element of working journalists’ resistance is not takeninto account. On this account if macro-level analysis of the propaganda modelcould be held as strengths of the model, disconnect from ground realities is itsweakness. And in order for political economy to connect with the bottom it isimperative for scholars to recognize and acknowledge those small details inwhich lays the element of resistance against power.
