Goffman and the online world

GOFFMAN AND THE ONLINE WORLDAPPROACHING GOFFMAN'S PRESENTATION OF SELF

Duncan Chapple 24.03.2015

Who?

Erving Goffman ‘22-’83 Important, long-lasting impact Field work mid-century in Shetlands Became interested in micro-sociology

What’s happening in the kitchen

Goffman describes the offline world

Social interaction: “that which uniquely transpires in social situations—in environments in which two or more individuals are physically in one another’s response presence.”

Situation: “any physical area anywhere within which two or more persons find themselves in visual and aural range of one another.”

Framework

The stage Helps understand what’s happening Belief in the role one is playing Impression management

Character is the process added to individuals to turn them into persons

Masks Status

Setting: the spaces are controlled Appearance: non-verbal communications Manner: also shows status and comfort

Framework

Dramatic realisations In the present of others, there are signals and

signs Dependent on setting Members stress their habits and routines

Idealisation Individuals incorporate and exemplify officially

accredited values Our own intentions are idealised: we think we

are meeting society’s expectations

The debate: Is Goffman’s framework still applicable to the online world?

The stage Status Dramatic realisations Idealisation

Comparison of different views on the contemporaneity of Goffman’s ideas

Knorr Cetina (2009)

• Globally-oriented interactionism challenges Goffman‘s approach

• Mostly based on researching global foreign exchange market

Bullingham & Vasconcelos (2013)

• Goffman‘s orginial framework is still applicable to the online world

• Based on research in the context of blogging and second life

Knorr Cetina (2009)

• Globally-oriented interactionism challenges Goffman‘s approach

• Mostly based on researching global foreign exchange market

Rethinking central assumptions of Goffman

Global situations (e.g. foreign exchange market) change forms of the Goffmanian interaction order

New concepts needed to explain global situations Synthetic situation: People received by machine (phone

etc); no co-location Time transaction: Asyncronous

Globally-oriented interactionism abandons assumptions of Goffman Physical presence Focus on human interaction and human mutual monitoring Local focus of a situation

What constitutes global andsynthetic situations?

Global situations are synthetic situations... “that include electronically transmitted on-screen projections that add informational depth and new response requirements to the “ecological huddle” (Goffman 1964:135) of the natural situation”

Synthetic situations are defined as…“an environment augmented (and temporalized) by fully or partially scoped components—in which we find ourselves in one another’s and the scopic components’ response presence, without needing to be in one another’s physical presence.”

In-depth look at synthetic situations

Different types of synthetic situations involve different systematics of reciprocity, accountability, rule-governedness etc.

Features of synthetic situations Informational (perhaps less contextual, more on the matter at hand) Temporal nature Symbolic interaction partners (participants interact through symbolic

‘faces’ of both individuals and also the ‘collective’ as a market)

The synthetic situation’s response system Response presence: we are responsible for prompt responses Intensity: strong mental and physical connectedness (swearing) Preparedness: the capacity to respond reflexively, automatically

Territoriality of copresence vs. temporal aspects of interaction

“When interactions migrate online, for example, the interacting parties meet in time rather than in a place; for that reason, response presence becomes important, and temporal rules of coordination begin to matter”

Goffman’s idea of time supposes that consequences are not immediate. The casino gambler’s later regret Today: scopic systems let us see data, which capture

outcomes. Ultrasounds assess the fateful categories.

Why global situations are not agglomerations of encounters

“Institutional interactions require, specify, and develop temporal coordinates connected to the substance of what these institutions do—a point not lost on Goffman and other interactionists and microsociologists who have analyzed institutional spheres” E.g. A global currency market cannot be

explained with Goffman’s original framework

Bullingham & Vasconcelos (2013)

• Goffman‘s original framework is still applicable to the online world

• Based on research in the context of blogging and second life

Goffman’s framework is of valuefor understanding online identities

Online environments provide their users with the potential to perform and present

different identities can be seen as stage whereas the offline world is the backstage Avatars are used to emphasize or minimize certain aspects of

the self Multiple use of avatars reflects Goffman’s idea of adopting

multiple identities in everyday life Bloggers might mask their identities

Methodology Semi-structured interviews with participants who were either

bloggers or SL users Grounded Theory used for data analysis

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Themes emerged &research findings

Expressions given Females express their feminity using various methods Appearing to be fun vs. appearing professional People display different graduations in expression

Embellishment as minor form of persona adoption Storytelling going back in time

Dividing the self Only some aspects of the offline self are presented online Some parts are emphasized, some are minimized (‘partial masking‘)

Conforming and ‘fitting in’ Bloggers do not feel the same pressure to conform as SL users do

Masking, anonymity and pseudonimity Fear

Presentation of self in the onlineworld is in line with Goffman‘s ideas

People are keener to recreate their offline selves online than to adopt a different persona

Disparity between offline and online selves is minimized

Implications for research

Is the ‘managed’ online persona authentic

Is the ‘managed’ online persona any more or less authentic than the offline one?

Find out more

Christian Hampel, Johannes Gutenberg University of MainzDuncan Chapple, University of Edinburgh

Erving Goffman’s work on the Presentation of Self in Everyday Life inspires a sociological and psychological approach towards the construction and materiality of actors’ behaviours. Through a series of interviews with industry analysts in the information technology and telecommunications industry, we develop a conceptualisation model that relates impression management in two contexts: “pitch” meetings (the formal oral presentations to analysts which are a primary input to the research process), and the diffusion of analysts’ insights (where successful research impact is subject to both oral and online self-presentation).

4pm March 31, UEBS

Resources

Knorr Cetina, K. (2009). The Synthetic Situation: Interactionism for a Global World. Symbolic Interaction 32, (1): 61-87

Bullingham, L., Vasconcelos, A.C. (2013). ‘The presentation of self in the online world’: Goffman and the study of online identities. Journal of Information Science, 39 (1): 101–112

Background: Goffman expanded.

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Analogy: the stage

Helps understand what’s happening● Belief in the role one is playing

o Asking observers to take you seriouslyo Ask them to accept players’ attributes

● Character is the process added to individuals to turn them into persons

● Masks

StatusGrowing concerns about what status means.● Ascribed by others, achieved by self, masterKey concepts● Front

o Setting: the spaces are controlledo Appearance: non-verbal communicationso Manner: also shows status and comfort

Interesting to consider, for example, selfies, or gendered settings like doctors and nurses

Dramatic realisations

In the present of others, there are signals and signs● Dependent on setting● Members stress their habits and routinesOn a mass setting, these provide infrastructre for “the fantasies of a nation”● What habits does facebook give stress

to?

Idealisation

Individuals incorporate and exemplify officially accredited values. Our own intentions are idealised: we think we are meeting society’s expectations.Some roles are seen as selfless