Worksheet Instruction: Answer the following questions; discuss in two sentences each. A worksheet for my Media Theory class for the lecture on Ideology as Instrumental Rationality and the Walter Benjamin essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" 1.      Why does aura wither in the age of mechanical reproduction? (p. 21) Aura withers in the age of mechanical reproduction because when an original gets reproduced, “the copies become detached to the domain of tradition.” By making many reproductions of the original, the process leads to