In broadcast journalism, a sound bite is a short piece of actual sound from the event reported on. The term is also used for the section of video that accompanies the audio.^[1] In politics, the term is used for a contextless excerpt of a speech.^[2]

In televised news broadcasting, a story may consist of visuals from the event accompanied by a voice-over explanation, and with the actual sound from the televised event muted. To make the broadcast more interesting, a section of video is inserted with actual sound from the event. This is the sound bite. Common examples of sound bites include excerpts from speeches, crowd scenes with street sounds, visuals of people entering or leaving a building or meeting, with accompanying sounds made by reporters or paparazzi, interviews with people on the street, modes of transport arriving or departing, with their associated sounds, and excerpts of concerts.

Sound bites are sometimes referred to as SOT (sound on tape).^[3]

The insertion of sound bites into news broadcasts or documentaries is open to manipulation, and thus requires a high degree of journalistic ethics. According to the Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists, journalists should "make certain that headlines, news teases and promotional material, photos, video, audio, graphics, sound bites and quotations do not misrepresent. They should not oversimplify or highlight incidents out of context."^[4]

Politicians of the new generation are carefully coached by their spin doctors to produce on-demand sound bites that are clear and to the point.

The term is sometimes written incorrectly (or ironically) as "sound byte".^{[citation needed]} It is also the name of a book by Franz Ferdinand frontman Alex Kapranos.

[edit] See also

• Non-denial denial
• Buzzword
• Media clip
• Propaganda
• Video clip

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Look up sound bite in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Top 5 Political Soundbites