We take violence in the media for granted. We rarely discuss, however, the meanings implied by the imagery that we see. In recent years, there has been a convergence between the technologies and cinematic forms of the broadcast news, the movie industry, and video games. Computer games reenact movie scenes, giving the player the chance to be in the action. The nightly news is shot like a video game, down the barrel of the gun and over the shoulder of the soldier. War movies, on the other hand, have begun to use handheld cameras, giving the illusion of raw newsreel footage.

All of these genres are shot using first person perspective. This gives the viewer the illusion of being an active participant in the violence. During the Gulf War, grainy, monochrome footage shot by bombs glued us to the television. Those bombs were aimed and guided by humans, and so we regarded them as extensions of ourselves. In the intervening years, we have come to rely on machines as substitutions for our eyes. Through television and our computers, we can be a soldier in World War II, Afghanistan, or The Persian Gulf without ever leaving our living rooms.

This may seem harmless, but becomes more unnerving if we consider the purpose of each genre. Video games and movies are intended for entertainment. The news, however, is assumed to impart objective information, and we lend it credence as a result. This visual convergence confuses the viewer's memories. If the news, the movies and the games all look the same, how do we know which memories to trust?

I am not arguing that the human eye is any less fallible than that of a machine. Historically, however, images captured by the eye occupy a different position in our memories than those images that we construct. Now that movies, games, and news footage are nearly identical, our recollections and experience of this footage becomes confused.