According to DigoPaul, the term ‘brief’ belongs to the group of adjectives and derives from the Latin brevis. This word, as many of you will know, allows you to refer to something of short length or duration. A brief thing, therefore, is characterized by its limited and summarized character either in relation to time and / or space. To cite some examples: “With a very short speech, the coach announced that he will leave the team at the end of the tournament”, “This is a short story, only four pages long”, “After a short period of time, the machine will return to operate ”.
Within the Spanish proverb, and in relation to this meaning of the term that concerns us, we find the expression: “The good if short, twice good.” With it, which belongs to the baroque writer Baltasar Gracián, what is tried to explain is that anything good if produced in excess ends up tiring and leaving behind its positive side.
In the field of journalism, a class of short-sized text is known as brief that is released in a block or published in a column accompanied by other similar texts. In general, each brief is a summary of a news story where only the most important data is included. Its structure allows us to answer what is considered to be the basic questions of journalism (that is, the answers to the questions of what happened, who is the protagonist, where it happened, how, when and why).
For the written press, briefs do not occupy more than one paragraph. The genre is usually dedicated to the least relevant news, those that do not require further study or analysis. In the audiovisual media, briefs allow the transmission of a large amount of information in a short time, since they are usually read at a rapid pace: “Brief: a man was assaulted outside a bank in Santiago. Three pedestrians were injured when they were hit by a motorcycle in front of the Government House. The police arrested the suspect for the engineer’s crime ”.
Although a brief can be found in any media, it is important to underline the fact that its essence and its importance value vary based on the mass media sector in which it appears specifically.
Thus, as we have previously stressed, in the case of a brief that appears in any written press, it will be identified because it refers to issues of less importance or social impact. It is also used both to link two long pieces of information on the same page and to make its space more attractive.
On the other hand, in the radio the briefs have a greater importance since the information that is offered in it is basically granted through them. The reason for this is that it is the way that the listener’s attention does not wane and that he can obtain the most precise and exact data of an event in question.
Finally, in the case of television, this journalistic resource also has a great role for the same reasons as on radio. And all this without forgetting that in this area it becomes even more attractive as the viewer’s gaze is more attentive to a battery of short-lived images.
In another sense, it must be said that a brief apostolic is a document issued by the Pope and that it is written in a less solemn and formal way than a bull or an encyclical.
In the music industry, short is the old note that is twice as long as the round or semi-free note.
