Goffman's Performance

In his aptly titled work, The Presentation of Self In Everyday Life, sociologist Erving Goffman analyses human identity construction and interactionism through the generous use of dramaturgical metaphors[1]. Published in 1959, just before the sociological revolution of the 1960's, Goffman's analysis of human behaviour nonetheless remains relevant in the digital age. The cornerstone of Goffman's study of human behaviour is the idea of the 'performance'. Goffman postulates that individual interactions are performances; carefully designed to 'project' a specific image to the second party, hoping to establish a favourable impression. Goffman opines that all human interactions are merely performances or acts - made by actors and delivered to an
The actor realises that the failure of his act would result in a loss of face[2] and is, therefore, hyper-aware of his actions. The contrast between 'front stage' and 'backstage' behaviour is taken to its logical extremes as Goffman presents the latter as the ideal private 'safe space' behaviour where no performance is required of the actor. Brown[3, p. 162] is convinced that the performance is an act of 'self-presentation'; considering that it provides the actor with the choice of donning a persona. The actor is often enamoured with the idea of playing a character that is devoid of the faults of his original self and becomes convinced of the validity of the alternate persona. Goffman believes that the individual, during an interaction, 'gives' and 'gives off' certain expressions[1]. In the case of the former, impressions that the actor purposely intends to produce are communicated while in the latter scenario, ideas which were not deliberately crafted into the performance are received by the
In the pre-computer mediated communications era, Goffman's disdain of the telephone is particularly striking. He opines that telephone conversions are essential 'departures from the norm'[6]; theorising that such was a 'marginal' form of interaction[7, p. 70]; implying that the telephone and other subsequent means of communication provided an inferior substitute to the 'primordial real thing'[5] since they lack the distinctly visible cues of physical interaction. Arundale[8] argues that Goffman's work holds no validity considering the vast improvements in communications technology and opines that the latter's work should be remodelled to incorporate the presence of the same. Miller, on the hand, explains that electronic interaction is a natural extension of Goffman's postulates[9]. It is important to note that modern-day technology has alleviated Goffman's main criticism of non-physical interaction through the incorporation of video and multimedia in communications technology. Jenkins notes that while physical interaction remains 'the real thing', the fact that virtual world avatars have become 'one of the most elaborate examples of impression management' cannot be denied[12]. Jenkins claims that the gulf between physical and digital interaction as identified by Miller[9], has been bridged, owing to the rapid improvements in communication technology. Laughey