The "Bystander Effect" And Why It's Hurting Diversity

Are media executives suffering from the “bystander effect” when it comes to diversity?

In 1964 a 28 year-old woman was raped and stabbed to death outside her apartment in New York. Thirty eight people supposedly watched for more than half an hour as she was attacked but did nothing, not even call the police.

The case made headlines across the world with everyone asking the same question; why didn’t any of those 38 people do anything to save the poor woman?

And so a new psychological theory was born: “The bystander effect”.

The idea behind the bystander effect is the idea of “diffusion of responsibility” - people are less likely to take action if there are other witnesses who seem likely to do so.

The insidious effect can work in two ways:

First, each witness thinks someone else will step in and save the day.

Second, each person feels morally justified in their inaction as they see other people acting (or not acting) in exactly the same way.

The irony of the “bystander effect” is the more people who are present and able to help the less likely the person in need of assistance will receive any help.

None of these bystanders are bad people. They would want to help a person in distress but once the “bystander effect” kicks in their good intentions do not become actions.

So what has this got to do with media executives and diversity?

During my time as a media executive there have frequently been BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) and disabled talent who everyone recognises as great. The one thing the BAME and disbaled talent all have in common is they needed a break. Whether that break is moving from assistant producer to director, producer to series producer, or series producer to executive producer they need someone in a leadership position to reach out to them.

In my experience media execs are generally nice people - as the cliche goes; “some of my best friends are media execs”. And when I have dinner party conversations with them they all want to increase diversity. At the same time I do not see them giving the breaks to BAME and disabled talent which we can all see.

For a long time I have tried to reconcile this contradiction.

And while I do not think there is any single reason, I firmly believe the “bystander effect” has a role to play.

Not to sound over-dramatic but TV executives are often like the thirty eight people who saw the 28 year-old woman in New York being raped and murdered in 1964 when it comes to helping diverse talent.

TV execs want to help diverse talent, they can see the diverse talent needs help BUT the irony is the more other execs say they also support diversity the less likely each individual exec will feel the need to act. They think someone else will sort out the problem.

So how do we solve the problem?

Luckily for us the first aid community have had to tackle this problem when helping victims of accidents in public and they have come up with a very simple solution: Identify specific individuals and ask for specific help.

So if someone collapses in the street and a first aider is present the first aider does not just call out to the crowd in general for help. The first aid community has found that the best course of action is for the first aider to identify a specific person (often randomly) and say “woman in the red t-shirt call 999” or “man with the shopping bag you will have to help me with chest compressions” etc etc.

This jolts people out of bystander mode and become active participants.

If higher management at UK broadcasters want their executives to increase diversity they cannot just send out general messages to their entire executive team to “increase diversity”. They should identify specific execs and give them very specific tasks:

“Luke, find a disabled series producer by the end of the year and if you haven’t got one explain what you did to try and find one”

“Tim, get me an Asian director for your next series and tell me about all the unsuccessful candidates you saw as well”

Etc etc.

When it comes to diversity there is really no such thing as an “innocent bystander” just people who acted and people who didn’t act. And surprisingly according to the “bystander effect” that has almost nothing to do with how morally good or bad they are as people.