Page 146 - Historical Dictionary of Political Communication in the United States

SOUTHERN CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE
of
to many of its segments. Correspondent Mike Wallace acquired a reputation 135
conducting "ambush interviews"—presenting evidence of wrongdoing to peo-
ple and grilling them relentlessly. Visually, extreme close-ups of interviewees
often add to the drama.

SOURCE: Sydney W. Head, Christopher Sterling, and Lemuel B. Schofield, Broad-
casting in America: A Survey of Electronic Media, seventh edition, 1994.
Joseph A. Russomanno

SOUND BITES. The use of video or film clips of news subjects speaking in a
segment of a television news story. In radio, the equivalent audio quotation is
known as an "actuality." Studies have shown that the length of television sound
bites in election campaign coverage fell from an average of more than 40 sec-
onds in the 1960s to less than 10 seconds in the 1990s. One study of sound
bites in the 1992 presidential campaign concluded that the 20-year trend of
shrinking sound bites had stopped, adding "but then, due to a floor effect, it
probably couldn't have shrunk much more anyway." The same study found that
almost 30 percent of total story time was devoted to sound bites. Reasons for
the reduction in average sound bite length can be found in the increasing so-
phistication of both television journalism and political campaigning. Television
has become much more mediated than in its early years. Then, a journalist's
role was passive; the words of news subjects dominated reports. Technical ad-
vances allowed easier editing and increasingly made the journalist the primary
communicator. In the 1970s, journalism became more interpretive, and state-
ments of politicians and candidates for public office were accepted less often at
face value. Modern campaign techniques, on the other hand, have been increas-
ingly oriented to exploiting the superficiality of television, stressing pacing and
visual imagery. The result has been that political candidates package their mes-
sages in quotable bites designed for television news. Yet the television sound
bites often are emphasized by the print media as well.
SOURCES: Daniel C. Hallin, "Sound Bite News: Television Coverage of Elections,"
Journal of Communication, Spring 1992; Dennis T. Lowry and Jon A. Shidler, "The
Sound Bites, the Biters, and the Bitten: An Analysis of Network TV News Bias in
Campaign '92," Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, Spring 1993.
Marc Edge

SOUTHERN CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE was started by
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., during the late 1950s to organize southern black
ministers for the Civil Rights movement. The SCLC, as it is commonly called,
organized the protest campaigns throughout the South, including the famous
marches and bus boycotts in Birmingham and Selma that drew national attention
to the plight of African Americans.
These events catapulted King to the national forefront along with the Civil