Walter Benjamin is probably best known in Australia for his essay, 'The Work of Art in the Age of its Mechanical Reproducibility'.* The context for this essay is the rise of Fascism in 1920s and '30s Europe. Benjamin warns against the dangers of Fascism's appropriation of mass culture and mass media. Such efforts work to render politics aesthetic, he argues, and culminate in only one thing - war. This describes a Fascist strategy in which…
