The phrase “sound bite” refers to a pithy, preplanned phrase used by a political candidate to generate media coverage. The use of these canned, provocative phrases is a common practice of political candidates, campaign spokespersons, and other surrogates tasked with delivering a campaign message to the news media. Modern presidential campaigns recognize that they must make extensive use of free media or earned media to get their message out to prospective voters. To assure coverage of their candidate’s speeches, campaigns carefully craft phrases designed to attract media coverage in news stories. During the Campaign of 1980, Republican nominee Ronald Reagan made effective use of the sound bite “There you go again” in a presidential debate with Democratic nominee Jimmy Carter, effectively making light of Carter’s attacks against him. Similarly, in the Campaign of 1984, Reagan’s question to voters, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” became one of the most effective sound bites in modern presidential campaign history. In the Campaign of 1988, Republican nominee George H. W. Bush famously declared at his party’s convention, “Read my lips, no new taxes.” The sound bite came back to haunt Bush after he was forced to raise taxes to deal with the spiraling budget deficit.
Numbered among the more recent sound bites are “Drill, baby, drill” from the 2008 GOP campaign as well as “Yes we can” from the Democratic side, and more recently “You didn’t build that” from the 2012 Democratic campaign. While the 2015–2016 presidential campaign season has certainly produced its share of provocative statements, a defining sound bite has yet to emerge.
The media’s increasing reliance on sound bites has received a great deal of criticism from scholars, who argue that this tends to reduce media coverage of important issues to theatrics, depriving voters of the serious analysis they need to make an informed choice between the candidates. Instead, media analysts and pundits often evaluate the effectiveness of a campaign speech on whether the speech included a certain number of snappy sound bites.
Hart, Roderick. Seducing America: How Television Charms the Modern Voter. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Mickelson, Sig. From Whistle Stop to Sound Bite: Four Decades of Politics and Television. New York: Praeger, 1989.
Scheuer, Jeffrey. The Sound Bite Society: Television and the American Mind. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1999.