Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction is about how groups of artists establish symbols
That work is not primarily about symbols or groups of artists at all, and insofar as it is about symbols and groups of artists it is about how mechanical reproduction diminishes the ability of artists to control the symbolic structure of their artworks. With that established, that work is primarily about art in a technological society, and about how technics shape (a) art, (b) politics, (c) the mediating interface between the two (which is itself technology in “the age of mechanical reproduction)
Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle is about how consumerist states cultivate mass consciousness through mass media
For Debord, the state is merely part of the Spectacle. The book is about how capitalism itself mediates culture through mass media. The idea of “mass consciousness” is too vague to get much of a look-in here, although the book could be plausibly explained as developing the vague idea of “mass consciousness” into something more concrete.
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