Erving Goffman - Presentation

8/14/2019 Erving Goffman - Presentation

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Ladies and gentlemen,

todays performing.

the self


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Performing the self


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People are giving a performance,

showing one of their fronts

in a face to face encounter.


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Aristotle or Goethe

More systematic work: Kenneth Burke

Idea of dramatism, terministic screens

Distinction of action and motion (things move, menact)

Men are symbol using animals. They build symbolic

structures adding art to life.


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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?


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Its position in research

Epistemology: Constructionism- Meanings are constructed byhuman 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


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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


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Very concerned with the microsociology

Everything people did on face to face interactions

The self is the central organizing feature of all socialencounters

Giddens and Habermas -very influenced by Goffman



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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, 19698. 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

About Erving GoffmanHis mayor publications

Articles, Essays, Monographs published as books


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His basic categories of themes are: Social order

Social structure

Organization


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.

Social interaction

The self

Social order


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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.


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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 managementThe 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


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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.


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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

Front stage

Back stage

Front

Setting - Physical layout and backgrounds

Appearance - Everything we can do to our bodies

Manner - What we do with our bodies


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What is accepted as reality will have somecharacteristics 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 conveyRole embracement- Idealized roles incorporate officially

accredited values of society. E.g. Teacher, priests, parenthood,

students.

Role distance


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Interaction ritual: essays in face to face behavior

Face: the social value a person claims to himself in aninteractionpositive

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 areother works that show up as established by society


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Stigma

When we present a front, we put ourselves at riskWhen a person violates moral demands of society

When is different from the assumed categories

When he posses an attribute that makes him different

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

Stigma

When someone does not live to those

expectations others become morally offended.


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

Certain fronts are universally acceptable/unacceptableBeing 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.


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Goffman in education


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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


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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 simpledescription to observations guided by theoretical ideas

Showed how context relates to the forms of behavior in public and to thesituation of observing these forms.

Provided insights into an ordinary situation and was a valid way to studycharacters in that setting

Observation can be focused on looking for specific things rather than tryingto note everything


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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 ofFacebook


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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?


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Screw Blackboard... do it on Facebook!: an investigation

of students educational use ofFacebook 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 personalinformation and situational relevance to campus life proved attractive tostudents

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 theirteaching relationships with internal student cohorts


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Conclusions

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Erving Goffman - Presentation

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