Media Bites – Call of Duty and the normalization of war

In this week’s Media Bites we take a look at the recent commercial promo for the new Call of Duty first person shooter video game, Black Ops. The ad injects real world people into the spot to suggest that anyone who plays the game will feel like they are in the midst of war.

However, the commercial and the game itself does not only provides a false self of reality, particularly for what US soldiers truly experience, it also serves as a tool to normalize the use of violence and war as a means of resolving conflicts.