Theoretical perspectives – Communication as Interaction Media Technology and Culture

Outline Goffman and the study of human interaction Concepts Talk as a form of interaction Home-exam walk through

The social/the individual Marx, Weber, Durkheim – macro socioloy Class, state, capitalism – collectives Sociology of everyday life – ordinary life, ordinary social members

Erving Goffman Self interaction with others – empirical, descriptive Sociology of the self: what is required of individuals for them to be social actors in interaction with one another. Little theoretical discussion Episodic writing

The Self Is not an identity, but something performed ’Impression management ´in social gatherings Concern with maintaining a front Social life as a theatre

Front stage and backstage Backstage: places or occasions in which the individual is not on display. Front stage – managed performances

Examples

A virtual front stage? (or backstage)

Arts of impression management Social networks ’two-faced’ self

Civil death Mental institutions Concentration camps Civilian, everyday self is constructed

Civil innatention Social life has structures that must be maintained by all participants How are they maintained. Virtual social-life – structures need to be created

Civil Inattention Mutual awareness of being in the presence of others We must let others know (communicate) that we are aware of their presence Possibility of being in public with others without anxiety

By according civil innattention, the individual implies that he has no reason to suspect the intentions of the others present and no reason to fear the others to be hostile to them, or wish to avoid them. […] This demonstrates that he has nothing to fear or avoid being seen or being seen seing, and that he is not ashamed of himself or of the place and company in which he finds himself. (Goffman, 1963b:84)

Face engagements

Social interaction, any time, any place, presuposes and draws upon the existing known and taken for granted world in which all of us find ourselves to be.

The biography of the self We create our biographies, memories Virtual biography – no possibility of rewriting our biography New ways of sharing your biography

Talk as interaction Discovery of talk as an enquiry object Talk – expressive medium of everyday existence Academics must prove themselves by dealing with serious weighty matters

Speaker identity Who is speaking? To whom? Different forms of talk. Lionel (speech therapist) : - You still stammered on the ‘w’ King George VI: - I had to throw in a few extra ones so they knew it was me

Talk as conversation Speaker and hearer Hearer : who is listening and who is addressed? Addressed and unaddressed recipients Participation frameworks (hearers), production formats (speakers) Conversation Analysis

Virtual talk Imediacy: process in which the medium is ‘erased’ from the experience as much as possible, in order to achieve a more ‘real’ experience. The self Time/place New rituals