I’ve been watching YouTube postings about the war in Iraq. I am struck by how some of the videos look like video games and how some war footage is raw and how some is set to music. It is almost like it isn’t real. And yet, at the same time, it is very real.

During the first Gulf War, CNN changed the way those of us “back home” saw the war. For the first time, cameras recorded the fighting, scud attacks and blood shed which often appeared on our television screen without the filter of an editor. The frightened voices of journalists sometimes accompanied that raw footage.

Now, the current Iraq conflict is brought into our living rooms — or where ever our computer is set up — through video clips captured by camcorders or cell phones and posted on YouTube. No editor or journalistic filter is required.

I found myself wondering–just who was filming and posting these videos? Were these soldiers entering combat with a camera and a weapon? Was the film from journalists or bystanders? Who edited and added music and graphics to some of the postings? And why did some of the YouTube videos have 300+ views and others thousands. Or, as the one I just watched, “US Marines In Iraq Real Footage Warning Graphic” had more than 3 million hits. 3,642,405 to be exact. Is this the new citizen journalism? See for yourself: