Non-diverse diversity: The NPR and Sgt. Pepper Problem

What happens when you expose yourself to the same diverse voices as everyone else? I think of this as the NPR/Sgt. Pepper problem.

National Public Radio in the US has programs that are great for exposing listeners to perspectives that are diverse along a lot of dimensions: income, education, race, occupation, family background, etc. That’s like most of the dimensions that people normally care about when looking for diversity of voices in media (1). 

But if you got all of your media exposure from NPR, your media would not be that diverse in the sense that all of it would have come from NPR (2). And lots of people listen to NPR, so you don’t have any different perspective than any of them.

A similar example from the art world: Reading the Wikipedia page for the Beatles’ album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band can send you to artists like Ravi Shankar, Yoko Ono, The Beach Boys, and Little Richard. In a lot of senses this is a super diverse group of artists in terms of their backgrounds and the type of music (or visual art) they make. But they all were huge and well-known influences on the Beatles

If you listen to artists who influence the Beatles you will find music that is incredibly diverse sonically. But you will be exposed to the same type of diversity as everyone else who also uses the Beatles to find new music.

If we’re interested in being exposed to diverse media and art, should we worry about this “lack of diversity in diversity”?

It depends why you value diversity. Despite drawing on very diverse sources themselves, using NPR and Sgt. Pepper as core sources for exposing yourself to new voices does not help you achieve diversity in your own media/art consumption. Because they are both very popular. So if lots of your media/art is NPR/Sgt. Pepper-adjacent, you’ll be similar to a lot of other people who like NPR/Sgt. Pepper." If your goal is to hear stories from people living in different circumstances than you (3), and explore music that is sonically different from what you’re used to, then NPR and Sgt. Pepper are great guides.

But if your goal in diversity is to expose yourself to things that other people like you are not exposed to, you have to do more (4).

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1. For example, the last episode of This American Life I listened to featured interviews from a COVID research scientist living in New York City, an Olympic boxing champion who was at one time homeless, and the daughter of Palestinian immigrants who was trying to get married, as well as a segment on Ahmaud Arbery

2. The existence of NPR adds another dimension along which different sources can be cluster (non diverse) or spread out (diverse)

3. Note that NPR will never let you hear from the most marginalized groups though: Because of NPR’s huge audience, the moment a group gets featured on a This American Life or Fresh Air story, they cease to be one of the most marginalized groups in the world. ADDENDUM: it’s possible for groups covered by NPR to still be marginalized economically or within their local communities. But they will not be the most marginalized groups in terms of US public awareness. Thanks to a friend for pointing this out.

4. Related point: There are more ways to be bad than good, and more ways to be wrong than right. So if maximizing diversity is something you care about, you’ll want to expose yourself to a lot of bad art, and to a lot of incorrect perspectives.