The Bite Back: Part 2: How soundbite culture has shaped our society

The 1990s: Reality TV drives spectacle over substance

This piece is the second in a five-part series tracing the evolution of soundbite culture and how it’s shaped the way we consume information, debate ideas, and trust (or don’t trust) the media. Each decade tells a different part of the story. This series starts with the 1980s, when political campaigns, corporate advertising, and media consolidation collided to shrink our attention spans post-Cronkite era journalism. From there, I’ll look at the 1990s tabloid boom and reality-TV era, the rise of the internet in the 2000s, the weaponization of social media in the 2010s, and finally, the algorithm-driven attention economy of today. Together, these chapters reveal not only how our media ecosystem has transformed, but how it’s changed our society and psychology at the same time.

When news started borrowing from entertainment

The 1980s gave us the political catchphrase and the corporate slogan, but the 1990s capitalized on sensationalism and added to the spectacle. The culmination of the 24 hours news cycle, reality TV, tabloid journalism, and cable news both shortened and dramatized the already condensed message. Suddenly, the clip that was used to get audiences to tune in wasn’t just about brevity, it was about encapsulating and heightening the conflict, turning every tear, scream, or zinger into a must-see moment replayed again and again. The soundbite evolved from a tool to condense politics and ads into a formula that would shape the future of media consumption forever. Traditional journalists were both reporting on reality and competing with it, blurring the line between information and entertainment.

From regulation to deregulation: How policy set the stage

The rise of spectacle-driven news in the 1990s wasn’t only driven by audience appetite. It was enabled by a major shift in U.S. media policy. Over the last half of the 20th century, the federal government’s stance on media ownership and regulation flipped from protecting diversity to embracing deregulation in the name of competition. The market changed drastically over this time, so let’s take a look at some of the factors behind this shift leading up until the 1990s.

Safeguards for diversity

In the 1970s, the FCC treated media diversity as essential for democracy. The Fairness Doctrine, introduced in 1949, required broadcasters to air controversial issues and include contrasting viewpoints. So, by the ‘70s, this created a perceived sense of balance in news coverage, with 72% of Americans trusting that the media reported “fully, accurately, and fairly” in 1976, according to Gallup. However, around this time, critics began to argue that the doctrine chilled free speech and discouraged coverage of divisive topics to avoid conflicts with regulators. Meanwhile, cross-ownership bans also kept newspapers and local stations from falling under the same owner, while the FCC’s financial interest and syndication rules (aka fin-syn rules) prevented the big three TV networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) from owning or profiting too heavily from the syndication of shows they aired.

Deregulation takes hold

By the early 1980s, the balance struck in the previous decades was starting to unravel. For audiences, rules like the Fairness Doctrine and fin-syn had fostered a sense of impartiality and trust in the news. But for broadcasters and policymakers aligned with the Reagan administration, these same rules were viewed as outdated barriers to competition and profit. Reagan’s FCC chairman, Mark Fowler, captured this new philosophy when he declared that television was nothing more than “a toaster with pictures,” implying that it was a consumer product, no longer just a tool for communication. This ushered in a wave of deregulation. The Fairness Doctrine was repealed in 1987, enabling the rise of partisan talk radio and less regulated political commentary. The industry quickly recalibrated, shifting its focus from serving a broad public to serving segmented audiences and advertisers.

Read the full blog on the Bite Back Substack.