Fragmented production processes weaken individual accountability for harmful content

Evidence

Multiple contributors make it easy to fix the blame for excessive violence on others. For example, here is a writer blaming advertisers for the prevalence of violence on television: “We aren’t going to get rid of violence until we get rid of advertisers. The advertiser wants something exciting with which to get the audience. Violence equals excitement equals ratings” (Baldwin & Lewis, 1972). Diffusion of the creation and production process further reduces a sense of personal accountability for the final product. Writers produce scripts, rewriters alter them, directors fill in the details of the scenarios, and editors have a part in how filmed events are depicted by what they select from the lengthy footage. If the original writers are offended by alterations of their scripts, they can use their registered pseudonyms to dissociate themselves from the product and spare themselves personal embarrassment. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 849

Categorization

• XREF: Each contributor can diffuse blame to others = the diffusion of responsibility mechanic, the same one at work in committee decisions and bystander effect. — connects to: Managers cannot resist using new social text to evaluate and punish subordinates — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 843; Dependence on anonymous producers drives demand for formal legal control — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law: An Introduction, 180; Capitalism abstracts in order to extract and distances harm to dodge accountability — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 111 (+1 more)