Why Is an Audio Clip Called a "Soundbite"?

The first thing worth noting about that word is that the "bite" in a recorded soundbite is spelled with an "i", not a "y." That’s because some people wrongly assume that a soundbite’s bite is actually a "byte," meaning a unit of computer data; consequently, they presume these brief audio "bytes" must be so named because they’re short snippets of digital recording, perhaps taking up only a few bytes of memory.

That certainly might be the case today, but the "bite" in a soundbite is actually the same bite that you would take from something you’re eating (and so is rightly spelled with an "i"). The word itself, meanwhile, long predates the widespread adoption of digital audio technology and dates back more than five decades.

An Appetizing Origin

The Oxford English Dictionary’s earliest known record of a soundbite is dated 1973; Merriam-Webster, meanwhile, has gone one year better and unearthed a record dating from 1972. Back then, in the early '70s, these early soundbites were short snippets of speech or dialogue that could be cut from a longer interview or recording, and then replayed as part of a broadcast. In essence, the new audio technologies of the time made it possible to replay the actual spoken words of someone being quoted in, say, a news report or sports update, rather than have a broadcaster or news anchor simply read the words out themselves.

As a result, it was the brief, pithy, truncated natures of these clips (rather than the amount of memory they took up) that led to them being known as "bites." So, just as a single bite is an individual morsel of a larger meal or serving, a sound “bite” acts as a single clip or literal "taster" of a longer recording. It’s fair to say the arrival of these sound “bites” in the news media of the '70s and '80s, however, had a rather unexpected knock-on effect.

Feeding the Media Circus

With editors and broadcasters now actively looking to clip out only the most important, memorable, or "soundbite-y" line from a speech or interview, rather than to discuss the meat of the entire speech, politicians and their PR gurus in particular began to intentionally concoct noteworthy and attention-grabbing lines, in the hope that they would be picked up later and widely circulated in news reports. The pithier, snappier, and more memorable these lines were, therefore, the more likely they were to catch on as news quotes and slogans, which in election season, especially, could have a significant impact on a candidate’s success.

​Not everyone, however, has welcomed the impact of the soundbite on our news media and political discourse. As The Concise Princeton Encyclopedia of American Political History noted in 2011:

"With less airtime devoted to politics [in the media of the ‘60s and ‘70s], politicians and elected officials gradually learned to express themselves in compact 'sound bites,' a technique that placed a premium on wit and personality, and further degraded public discourse."

​Whether the legacy of the soundbite is viewed as positive or negative, though, the word itself has somewhat turned back on itself—becoming not just a word for an audio clip unceremoniously lifted from a recording by news reporters and broadcasters, but a line or quote deliberately crafted in such a way as to make it more likely to be picked out as a suitably catchy and snappy broadcast soundbite. As Merriam-Webster’s definition now explains, a soundbite can ultimately be used for both a "brief recorded statement" and a "catchy comment or saying."

More Like This: