Ladies and gentlemen, todays performing.

the self

Performing the self

People are giving a performance, showing one of their fronts in a face to face encounter.

Aristotle or Goethe More systematic work: Kenneth Burke

Idea of dramatism, terministic screens Distinction of action and motion (things move, men act) Men are symbol using animals. They build symbolic structures adding art to life.

Society is a drama in which actions, in terms of social symbols, are the crucial events. Examples: politics, mass communications, leadership, social movements, rituals, ceremonies Erving Goffman: What is going on in social interaction?

Its position in research

Epistemology: Constructionism- Meanings are constructed by human beings as they engage with the world they are interpreting.

Theoretical perspective: Interpretivism- looks for culturally derived and historic situated situations of social world.
Symbolic interaction: Explores the understandings of the culture as the meaningful matrix of our life. Methodology: Ethnography- documenting the culture of people in social settings, getting inside the way each group of people sees the world. Dramaturgical approach: analogy between life and theater

About Erving Goffman

Born in 1922 in Alberta, Canada University of Toronto, University of Chicago

Most incisive contributions to social psychology

Interested in exploring the borders: writing on total institutions, stigma, gender relations, role distance and frames

About Erving Goffman

Very concerned with the microsociology Everything people did on face to face interactions The self is the central organizing feature of all social encounters Giddens and Habermas -very influenced by Goffman

About Erving Goffman

His mayor publications
1. The presentation of self in everyday life 1959 , 2. Asylums: essays on the social situation of mental patients and other inmates, 1961 3. Encounters: two essays in the sociology of interaction 1961 , 4. Stigma: notes on the management of spoiled identity 1963 , 5. Behavior in public places: Notes on the social organization of gatherings, 1963 6. Interaction ritual: essays in face-to-face behavior 1967 , 7. Strategic interaction, 1969 8. Relations in public: microstudies of the public order, 1971 9. Frame analysis: an essay on the organization of experience, 1974 10. Gender advertisements: 1979 11. Forms of talk, 1981
Articles, Essays, Monographs published as books

About Erving Goffman

His basic categories of themes are: Social order Social interaction Social structure The self Organization Social order

He shows a very subversive writing Authors of: gender, madness, politics, communication, and society have written about Goffman, and there is a wide range of interest in his writings.

What exactly Goffman tells us about his view of the world?

What is going on in social interaction? Where individuals present themselves to one another? Dramaturgy is a way of understanding social encounters using the analogy of a stage, or theatrical performance All social relationships are drama; people are masks in their relations to other.

What exactly Goffman tells us about his view of the world?

All we can know about a persons self is what the person show us

Impression management
The manipulation of cues to control and organize the impression we give to others

Focus: Interactions with a high level of performance Small scale interactions more than a bigger stage More in the individual, rather than in the situation

The presentation of the self in every day

Rules of social interaction and modes of self presentation
When an individual presents himself before others, they commonly seek to acquire information about him. They will be interested in their status, his conception of self, his attitude toward them, and his trustworthiness.. Information about the individual helps to define the situation, enabling others to know what expect of him.

The presentation of the self in every day

Front Setting - Physical layout and backgrounds Appearance - Everything we can do to our bodies Manner - What we do with our bodies Front stage Back stage

Face to face interaction influence upon anothers actions Encounter interaction that occurs one occasion Performance activity of a given participant on any occasion Part or routine the pre-established pattern of action

The presentation of the self in every day

What is accepted as reality will have some characteristics of celebration. To stay in one room apart from the party is to stay away from where reality is being performed. People must follow what it is being performed. The world is a wedding. Role- bundles of activities laced together Dramatic realization - individual must express what he wishes to convey Role embracement- Idealized roles incorporate officially accredited values of society. E.g. Teacher, priests, parenthood, students. Role distance

Interaction ritual: essays in face to face behavior

Face: the social value a person claims to himself in an interactionpositive Face-work: so he will not put himself at risk, or wont be stigmatized or marked Some of this face work is our responsibility, but there are other works that show up as established by society

Stigma
When we present a front, we put ourselves at risk WhenWhen someonemoral demands of society a person violates does not live to those When is different from the assumed categories expectations others become morally offended. When he posses an attribute that makes him different

Stigma
1. Discredited: people with apparent stigmas: Handicapped 2. Discreditable: well known but not apparent stigmas: rigid beliefs, unemployed, homosexuals, homeless, alcoholism, suicidal attempts, radical political behavior 3. Tribal stigma: race, nation, religion The rest: Normals

On cooling the mark down: some aspects of adaptation to failure

Certain fronts are universally acceptable/unacceptable Being productive, being successful, not being a criminal Society is dominated by individualism and competition We live in a society were failure is common Mark- a person who has compromised himself, in his own eyes if not in the eyes of others. Leaving a role may be interpreted as a mark Eg: when a woman voluntarily gives up a profession in order to become a wife and a mother People have to be cooled out.

Goffman in education

Goffman in education
The "Cooling-Out" Function in Higher Education adaptation to failure gives solutions or cooling-out strategies for students who do not fulfill schools requirements

Using Goffman's concepts to explore collaborative interaction processes in elementary school mathematic the different roles that emerge in the process of collaborative interaction, the influence of these roles on group achievement and individual learning possibilities

Goffman in education
Lives in 2 languages: An exploration of identity and culture discussion about the American identity common misperceptions about immigrants as students Addressing the baseline: Erving Goffman and ethics in a postgraduate degree for practicing teachers. Problem: Students generally experience great difficulty with conceptual thinking Findings: Students research changed to go beyond simple description to observations guided by theoretical ideas
Showed how context relates to the forms of behavior in public and to the situation of observing these forms. Provided insights into an ordinary situation and was a valid way to study characters in that setting Observation can be focused on looking for specific things rather than trying to note everything

Face-work in facebook
Internet was not invented or in use Face to face interaction

Online? New theories or amendments

A Study of Self-Presentation in Light of Facebook Screw Blackboard... do it on Facebook!: an investigation of students educational use of Facebook

Face-work in facebook
A Study of Self-Presentation in Light of Facebook
How Goffmans approach may be transported to online social networks How Facebook contributes to our understanding of self-presentation. Self-presentation is an especially significant element of Facebook. Facebook is different from face-to-face interactions in that very little is done spontaneously This means that the self-presentation I under control. Or not?

Face-work in facebook
Screw Blackboard... do it on Facebook!: an investigation of students educational use of Facebook
To observe the social significance of Facebook in the lives of undergraduate university students in the UK Micro-management of their social lives Its combination of self-presentation, viewing of others personal information and situational relevance to campus life proved attractive to students They use it for the informal aspects of their education Education and university-related exchanges - a minor constituent of student postings Facebook appear to be an important arena within which the behind the scenes work are performed Raises important questions about how universities will articulate their teaching relationships with internal student cohorts

Conclusions