Soundbite
A short, vivid extract from a longer speech, designed to be repeated by news media.
A soundbite is a short, quotable extract from a longer speech or interview, usually between five and twenty seconds, designed to be lifted and replayed by broadcast media. The form rose with television news in the 1960s and was the dominant unit of American political communication by the 1980s.
Soundbites collapse complexity. A good one captures the speaker's point; a bad one strands the words from their context and lets the editor decide what they meant. Politicians and their speechwriters now compose with the soundbite in mind, packing each address with one or two lines engineered to be the line.
On social media, the soundbite has been compressed further into the shareable card — a single sentence and a face. The risks are the same: removed from context, the line can travel further than the speaker intended, and say something else entirely.
“Read my lips: no new taxes.”
Keep reading the glossary
A short, eye-catching quote lifted from an article and displayed in large type for emphasis.
A phrase or quote so overused that it has lost most of its force.
Reproducing a quote with the wording changed — even if the source is correct.
A short, sharp statement that compresses a truth or observation into a single line.