Dramaturgy Erving Goffman

Pretend you are playing the role of a character named Jordan, while discussing Erving Goffman’s theory of dramaturgy. Jordan finally made it. Jordan finally graduated university and has been lucky enough to receive an offer for an interview at the institution that he had been working towards his entire university career, an interview at the top law firm in all of Toronto. Now it is time to prepare. It is time for Jordan to show the firm that he is meant to be there. To show the firm that this position was meant for him, he must be the best version of himself. Jordan is competing against hundreds of other university graduates, but he must show them that he is the one. Jordan’s first impression matters, he must show them the qualities that they want to see to ensure that he receives the position at the law firm.

Finally the last element which Burke discusses is agency which is the theoretical points, he claims that the whole lot is realised through language. From these elements Goffman then went on to develop his own ‘dramaturgical’ investigations based on six themes: the performance, the team, the region, discrepant roles, communication out of the character and impression management. Nothing of Goffman’s dramaturgical world is quite what it seems. Rather, people are all portrayed as performers enacting rehearsed lines and roles in places that are carefully constructed in order to maximise the potential of deception. He then goes on to suggest that as performers people both ‘give’ and ‘give off’ impressions. It has been suggested that Goffman’s dramaturgical world is thus one of misdirection in which general suspicion is necessary; he developed an interest in espionage practices mainly because he recognised these as extensions of everyday behaviour. Goffman then went on to identify five moves in social interaction which are the ‘unwitting’, the ‘naïve’, the ‘covering’, the ‘uncovering’ and finally the ‘counter uncovering’ move (1959: 11-27). Each of these moves is designed either to achieve some advantage directly, or to reveal the strategies of other players. These moves are used in social worlds, or as Goffman called them, ‘situated activity systems’. Each is regulated by adopted norms known by system’s members. Rather than concentrating on the production of meanings, the

In consideration of Goffman’s Dramaturgical Model of Interaction explore its contribution to our understanding of social interaction. In order to help you explain this you should illustrate your work with practical examples from everyday life.

Functionalist Erving Goffman studies the sociological approach of Dramaturgy in his book ‘The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life’ (Goffman, 1959), he built his theory based on earlier work completed by Kenneth Burke. However there are distinct differences in features of the theory between Burke and Goffman as Burke believed that life was in fact a literal

In his book, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Goffman (1959) focuses on the self as a staged production in which people actively present themselves to different audiences one encounters. To bolster his conceptualization, Goffman used an interesting metaphor of “all the world’s a stage” (1959, 254). This, he terms as a “dramaturgical approach” (Goffman 1959, 240) in which an actor puts on a show for others; drawing analogies between human behaviors and the theater. Goffman (1959) likens the individual to an actor on stage performing for and with other individuals involved in the situation. Three types of space exist for the actor to perform on, to enact the self, and to interact with others: the front stage, the backstage, the outer region. Goffman (1959) utilizes specific dramaturgical terms such as performance, teams, front and back regions, sign-vehicles, and highlights the process of dramatic realization. These terms will be discussed in the following sections.

In “Presentations of Self in Everyday Life,” Goffman is constantly explaining how everyday life is a dramaturgy. A dramaturgy is the art of dramatic composition and essentially the production of a theatrical play. A social situation is much like a play. Every play has a stage, actors, a script, a set, rehearsals, and practices. In a social situation, the stage is where the encounter takes place, the actors are the people involved in the encounter, the script is the social norms of the social encounter, and the set is the environment where the encounter takes place. It takes practices and

Goffman on the other hand refers to the identity of self as a performance and a script where an individual sets the scene for their life. Basically he is saying that individuals sets out to present themselves to the world around them, always trying to maintain the role they have selected for themselves, since those whom they meet not only try to decide what role it is you are playing, but also whether or not you are competent to play that role. Goffman states “There is a popular view that the individual offers his performance and puts on his show ‘for the benefit of other people’. It will be convenient to begin a consideration of performances by

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” William Shakespeare may have written these words in As You Like It in 1600, but Erving Goffman truly defined the phrase with his dramaturgical theory. Dramaturgical analysis is the study of social interaction in terms of theatrical performance. Unlike actors though, who use a script telling them how to behave in every scene, real life human interactions change depending upon the social situation they are in. We may have an idea of how we want to be perceived, and may have the foundation to make that happen. But we cannot be sure of every interaction we will have throughout the day, having to ebb and flow with the conversations and situations as they happen.

Erving Goffman was a sociologist known for developing the symbolic interaction and dramaturgical theory perspective. The dramaturgical theory is a social psychological perspective that studies human behavior and social interaction in terms of the analogy of the theater. This perspective is also related to symbolic interactionism. Symbolic interactionism is a theory based on interaction and communication, facilitated by many different words, gestures, and other symbols that have acquired various meanings. Dramaturgical theorist focus on how people manipulate various aspects of themselves and their settings to influence how others define and respond to them. In this perspective, “the self” is constructed of the various roles that one acquires, in order to present their various selves in ways that sustain particular impressions to their audiences. “The self” is a private possession established in and reflective of an individual’s personality, which includes ones values, beliefs, motives, traits, and dispositions. In addition, a person’s “self” is acquired through social relationships and is a structurally fundamental process that may change due to various situations. As humans interact with one another they are placed in social categories based on their attributes and actions. These assessments are primarily based on ones knowledge of roles.

With the development of modern technologies, millions of individuals are constantly connected with the digital world, where some individuals may correlate social media platforms as real life. However, it is reasonable to state that due to the vulnerability of teenagers and their difficult transformations, both mentally and physically, social media could have various influences on teenagers, that including low self-esteem. Erving Goffman's dramaturgical theory can help explain how one’s identity development is framed while on these social sites as well as while offline. Using collected data, qualitative methods have shown that such things like surveys that are randomly sampled can help approach this link between social media and an individual's sense of self. Although there were no significant relations identified, results indicate that social media platforms can possibly have a negative effect on individuals sense of self.

In the beginning of chapter two Goffman describes how there is inconsistency between virtual identity and social identity between individuals, and how those individuals are shamed. Throughout chapter two of this book, Goffman has eight different subtopics that label and explains information control and personal identity. Under Social Information, Goffman discusses the importance of how different symbols mean different things. For example in the book a wedding ring typically means one is married, this symbol can show prestige or even honor in society. Goffman describes how status symbol is more so prestige symbol because it draws more attention to

Goffman was the first to introduce the topic of dramaturgy in his work. Dramaturgy is his idea that life is a play. The people are actors and the every day world around us is our stage. (1959, p.13) He uses the image of a theatre performance to express the behaviour of people in everyday social interactions. Although not always aware of it, every individual in a social situation is assigned a role in the performance. Every individual obtains a role in social interaction and the audience observes and reacts to the performance. Goffman discussed the three different regions of performance as the front stage, the back stage and off stage. Each region has a particular impact on one’s performance.

Erving Goffman is one of the most important American sociological theorist in the second half of the century and was also influenced by Durkheim, Freud, and Simmel in his work. He is well known for his analysis of human interaction which is now called “dramaturgical analysis”. Dramaturgical Analysis is the study of social interaction in terms of theatrical performance. For example, Goffman uses terms like “front”, “setting”, and “performance” when explaining his theory. The front is also known as the expressive equipment, intentional or unintentional kind employed by the performer. The setting is also part of the front and involves the physical layout like

Erving Goffman sees self-presentation in six aspects, which are all related to the idea of life as a drama; persona, performance, staging, teams, role, personal style. According to Goffman, a persona is when someone wears various personality ‘masks’ depending on which roles they are undertaking, for example, when someone is with their friends the mask they wear defines them as a kind, friendly person whereas when they are with the family the mask will come off and their personality will change. I wear a mask when I’m with my friends and this portrays me as a friendly, outgoing character, whereas the mask I wear at home is loud, moody and unproductive.

Ever since I took drama classes in high school I felt that we always put on an act. A show almost, that we put out for the people we interact with daily. Erving Goffman, “Canadian-American Sociologist” (Encyclopedia In., 2017) also believed this, he compared social interactions to the theater, where individuals take a particular role. According to Goffman this “theatrical metaphor consists of a stage, actors, and an audience” (Crossman, 2014). It also consists of the onstage, backstage and offstage. These three stages show different behavior on a person.