Who is Erving Goffman:
Erving Goffman was born on June 11, 1922 in Canada
to Ukrainian Jewish immigrants and left the earth on November 20, 1982. He
studied sociology at University of Toronto and University of Chicago. He is
best known for symbolic interaction perspective, dramaturgical perspective, and
was the 73rd President of The American Sociological Association
(Crossman, 2014). Goffman is acclaimed for theories implying routine social actions,
from a expansion of the work by Emile Durkheim to find a moral order that makes
society possible (Anon, 2008). He arranged the subjects he wrote about,
based on observations to explain modern life. One subject that surprised me was
“investigating the way that commercial advertising both reflects and helps
shape our concept of “masculine” and “feminine” behavior” (Teuber, 2010).
For a detail timeline of Erving Goffman's Life click the link below:
What was his work:
Erving Goffman wrote five books that I felt most
contributed to his success as a sociologist. The first book was The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life
written in 1956. This is the book where the famous Dramaturgy Theory was
established. Dramaturgy Theory can be summarizes as a society we tend to build self-images based
on social audiences, and perform different roles daily to maintain those
self-images the audiences bestow upon us. Those roles vary from front stage,
appearance, manner (brusque or meek), interaction, mystification, back stage,
and outside. All these distinct performances makes up a person’s impression
management, techniques people used to maintain certain impressions they need to
live up to in society (Ritzer, 2013).
Erving Goffman and the Performed Self
To better understand the Dramaturgy Theory showing
the different self-images we portray in life, using a theater setting.
The second book Asylums
written in 1961 and third book Stigma
written in 1963 were based on mental illness patients and mental hospitals.
Goffman analyzed the backstages of society in mental hospitals, where he claim
they were “total institutions”. This means the patients have to follow authority;
there is no privacy to form a backstage life (Anon, 2008). Leading to
the next book, Relations in Public written
in 1971, that made known the violations exhibited
by mental patients, and study sociable gatherings, to develop a taxonomy of
social situations and their tacit requirements and constraints.The fifth book
is Interaction Ritual written in 1967
focusing on theories of Durkheim and Alfred Radcliffie-Brown that “everyday
situation is constructed out of efforts at ritual enactment, and the modern
individual self is elevated into a Durkheim sacred object”(Anon,
2008).
Erving
Goffman - Interaction Ritual
To
better understand Interaction Ritual as a whole. This video demonstrates the theories
well that the book is based on.
How the theories relevant in modern society:
Erving
Goffman theories fit perfectly in to modern day lifestyles since the increase propaganda
with social media. Social media has become the Holy Gail to most in society because
it allows people to become whoever they chose to present to society. There are no
restrictions that forbid people from flaunting fictitious self images for the
world to see. Also, social media allows influence over building a person’s self-image
more than I think it was intended to be used for in society. As Goffman points
out people wear various masks when they interact with others in their own personal
social groups.
This can
be seen in the following video, showing a typical high school setting with students
wearing different masks. These masks reflect self-images based on social groups
or what is popular in the media.
Furthermore, social media has in addition leads to a
decrease in face-to-face interaction relationships, because in face-to-face a
person is portraying a discredited stigma that is often hidden in internet
relationships. The relationships on the internet are often discreditable
stigmas that are unrealistic of how a person truly is. People relay on social
media to hide how they are truly feeling, for instance, they could be posting
false images of happy statues and updates about their life, but in reality
feeling alone and depressed.
Another example of an Erving Goffman’s theory that
is seen in modern society is impression management theory. Impression
management theory can be applied to the use of social media because it helps
promote people doing a “series of unexpected actions, unintended gestures,
inopportune intrusions, and faux pas things” (Ritzer, 2013). This can be seen
in photos, videos, posts, comments, or just about anything that appears on
social media nowadays. People are looking to expose on different social media
sources embarrassing moments of their friends and family for everyone to share
in the fun of mocking it. This is seen a lot in social media with famous
people. The social media is always looking for ways to expose famous people in
their not so good moments in life.
Here is a video on impression management to better
explain the theory.
References:
Anon.
2008. “Goffman, Erving.” Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved March 27, 2016 (http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/erving_goffman.aspx).
Crossman, Ashley. 2014. “Read The
Biography of the Famous Sociologist Erving Goffman.” About.com Education. Retrieved March 26, 2016 http://sociology.about.com/od/profiles/p/erving-goffman.htm).
Ritzer, George. 2013. Contemporary Sociological Theory and Its
Classical Roots: the basic. New
York, NY. McGraw Hill.
Teuber, Andreas. 2010. “Erving
Goffman Biography.” Erving Goffman Biography. Retrieved March 26, 2016
(http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/goffmanbio).
