Sound-bite
Hallin cites three reasons for the sound-bite
revolution, as apposite in the twenty-fi rst century
as when he was writing: the technological one
already mentioned; the weakening in political
consensus and authority following Vietnam
and watergate; and the discovery by the TV
industry in the States that news was big business- if, that is, presentation was ‘punchy’ enough to
attract and retain audience attention. Ironically,
the approach derives from the very people jour-
nalists often accuse of manipulating the media - political campaign managers – so-called ‘spin
doctors’ whose techniques of packaging candi-
dates have centred around sound-biting images,
one-liners, the use of triumphalist music, etc.
Dan Hallin acknowledges that modern news
is far more ‘professional’, far more varied, slicker
than in the past, but he identifi es serious worries.
‘First and simplest, it is disturbing that the public
never has the chance to hear a candidate – or
anyone else – speak for more than 20 seconds’,
especially as showing ‘humans speaking is
something television does very eff ectively’. Also
the modern pace of exposition raises questions
concerning audience comprehension, the abil-
ity of viewers to understand what is coming at
them at such speed. Not the least concern is that
sound-bite journalism emphasizes techniques
over substance: the very sin the journalist
accuses the spin doctor of committing. See
journalism; news management. See also
topic guide under news media.
▶David Stayden and Rita Kirk Whillock, eds, Sound-
bite Culture: Th e Death of Discourse in a Wired World
(Sage, 1999).
Sound broadcasting See radio broadcast-
ing.
Sound Broadcasting Act (UK), 1972 Gave the
go-ahead to commercial radio in the UK.
The name Independent Television Authority
(ITA) was changed to Independent Broadcasting
Authority (IBA), and the IBA was empowered
to create a new group of contractors in up to
fi fty British cities to run local commercial radio
stations and collect advertising revenue in a
manner similar to that of the TV programme
companies. Th e fi rst commercial radio stations
went on the air in October 1973.
Sound, synchronous See synchronous
sound.
Source An individual, group or institution that
originates a message. In media terms, source
is where information starts, and it is an axiom
of good reporting that the material supplied by
source is reliable and true. Best practice suggests
that single sources be checked against other
professor of physics Alan Sokel, outraged by
what he saw as the ‘gibberish’ of postmodernist
texts (see postmodernism) and with tongue
fi rmly in cheek, wrote a paper in 1996 entitled
‘Transgressing the boundaries towards a trans-
formative hermeneutics of quantum gravity’.
It has been described as ‘a carefully crafted
parody of postmodern twaddle’. Th e paper was
submitted to the US journal Social Text and was
accepted and published – not as a hoax, but as
the real thing.
Commenting afterwards on his hoax, Sokal
acknowledged deliberate half-truths, falsehoods
and non sequeteurs and confessed that his article
contained ‘syntactically correct sentences that
have no meaning whatever’.
▶See Alan Sokel and Jean Bricmont, Intellectual
Impostures (Profi le Books, 1998); also published by
Picador in the US, with the title Fashionable Nonsense
(1998).
Sound-bite Term originally derives from radio
but has come to apply equally to TV; describes
a fi lm or tape segment within a news story, in
which a reporter talks to a source such as a poli-
tician or an eyewitness. With the advent of more
sophisticated technology for handling news
reports, the use of jump-cutting has added to the
complexity and the drama of the sound-bite. Th e
ellipsis jump-cut splices two or more segments
of the same person speaking in the same setting:
these are classifi ed as single sound-bites. Th e
juxtaposition jump-cut places together contrast-
ing segments, usually from diff erent settings, in
such a way as to make evident the discontinuity.
Th ese tend to be treated as separate sound-bites.
Research into the nature and degree of sound-
bites in news broadcasting in the US indicates
that contemporary news employs far more,
and far shorter sound-bites, than in the past. In
‘Sound-bite news: television coverage of elec-
tions, 1968–1988’ in Journal of Communication,
Spring, 1992, Daniel C. Hallin reports that the
average sound-bite has been shrinking, from
more than 40 seconds in length in 1968 to less
than 10 seconds in the 1980s. Th e conclusion
Hallin draws from this is that the news is much
more mediated than the TV news of the 1960s
and 1970s.
He writes, ‘Today’s television journalist
displays a sharply diff erent attitude towards the
words of candidates and other newsmakers.
Today, those words, rather than simply being
reproduced and transmitted to the audiences,
are treated as raw material to be taken apart,
combined with other sounds and images, and
reintegrated into a new narrative.’