Studio 360 (an excellent  radio program) replayed an interview with Susan Sontag, recorded on the eve of the Second US – Iraq War. Sontag talks about the power of images and if they desensitize us.

She has unique perspective  having written an influential essay On Photography,  in which she argued in 1977 that we were being desensitize by images in mass media. In this interview she critiques  her original argument, using the art of Goya and her experience in Sarajevo during the Balkans war.

This is a controversial subject and Sontag makes strong points,  I recommend listening, it has a 16 minute running time.