Goffman's Dramaturgy
Also known as: Presentation of Self
Social life analyzed as theatrical performance with frontstage and backstage regions.
Erving Goffman's dramaturgical sociology was articulated in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959), with subsequent elaborations across Asylums (1961), Behavior in Public Places (1963), Interaction Ritual (1967), and Frame Analysis (1974). Goffman analyzes social interaction through the extended metaphor of theatrical performance, with key concepts including: front stage (where the performance is given to an audience) and back stage (where the performer prepares and relaxes); team performances (groups of performers cooperating to sustain a definition of the situation); impression management (the active work of presenting oneself in particular ways); face-work (managing one's social standing in interactions); and the moral character of social order (interactants implicitly cooperate to sustain shared definitions, with substantial social damage when they don't). Goffman's contribution to symbolic interactionism is microsociological in focus but distinctive in the sustained dramatic metaphor and the emphasis on social order as ritually accomplished moment-by-moment. Frame Analysis (1974) extended the framework to analyze how participants identify what kind of activity is happening (the frame) and how frames can be transformed or breached. Goffman's influence has extended substantially beyond sociology — into communication theory, organizational studies, and contemporary discussions of online self-presentation in social media research.
Core components
- Front stage and back stage regions
- Performance and team performance
- Impression management
- Face-work and face-saving
- Definition of the situation
- Frames and frame analysis (1974 extension)
- Civil inattention
- Stigma management (Stigma, 1963)
- Total institutions (Asylums, 1961)
- Distinction from cynical and sincere performance
- Moral character of social order
- Application to online self-presentation in contemporary research
Primary use case
Microsociological analysis of everyday interaction; foundation for substantial work on identity management, organizational impression management, communication theory; reference framework in sociology, communication, and contemporary social-media research; basis for analyses of stigma management and self-presentation; influence on professional communication training and customer-service-design frameworks.
Common criticisms
- Theatrical metaphor can suggest cynicism about social interaction (everyone is performing) when Goffman's analysis is more nuanced about the moral character of performance
- underweights structural conditions shaping which performances are possible and credible (gender, race, class affect who can credibly perform what)
- microsociological focus does not connect well to macro-level questions of power and inequality
- conceptual proliferation across Goffman's books creates which-concept-when ambiguity
- some applications stretch the dramaturgical metaphor beyond its analytical force
- cross-cultural applicability of specific concepts (face-work, civil inattention) varies
- contemporary online-self-presentation extensions sometimes overstate continuities with Goffman's original face-to-face frame
- the tradition's American mid-20th-century framing shows in particular concept choices.
Lineage
- Child of
- Symbolic Interactionism
- Siblings
- Symbolic Interactionism, Looking-Glass Self
- Derived from
- Symbolic Interactionism