COMS 201 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Erving Goffman, Impression Management, Ethnography

• School: University of Calgary
• Department: Communications Studies
• Course: COMS 201
• Professor: Samantha Thrift

Document Summary

Concerned with performance in various forms like concerts, theatrical events, performance art, sporting events. Social, political, and religious events (rituals, ceremonies, public decisions) Language use (to say something, is to do something) Identity (how we perform (cid:862)do(cid:863) identity, not just be something) Performance ethnography: role of performance to sustain social communities, to express their values. Performance and political action: power of performance to question traditional identities and social relations that underlie social inequities. Symbolic interactionist theorist: study of everyday life as performance. Key concepts: dramaturgy, frames, front stage, back stage, impression management (people craft and manage their impressions do it instin(cid:272)ti(cid:448)el(cid:455) (cid:271)e(cid:272)ause (cid:449)e(cid:859)re so(cid:272)ial beings and we want to get along with one another) Belie(cid:448)es people pla(cid:455) roles a(cid:374)d prese(cid:374)t a (cid:862)fa(cid:272)e(cid:863) for pu(cid:271)li(cid:272) (cid:448)ie(cid:449): (cid:449)e are all a(cid:272)tors i(cid:374) the social world! Goffman is highly heuristic and widely used as a theorist across the humanities. Argues the social world is a theatre (cid:449)e gi(cid:448)e perfor(cid:373)a(cid:374)(cid:272)es, (cid:449)e(cid:859)re a(cid:272)tors pla(cid:455)i(cid:374)g roles.