Andy Oram at O’Reilly Radar has two interesting lengthy posts reflecting on the work of 1960s sociologist Erving Goffman, and the implications of his work for understanding online identity and presentation of oneself online. The first post is based on Goffman’s book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. We are performers who “manage” our appearance, behaviors, and identity through what we show to others and how we act. Online performance requires a different set of techniques for managing ones image, but for most of us, we know from others, when we have violated the norms of the online audience.
The second post is based on another Goffman book, Frame Analysis. Frames are context, and the same behavior can have very meanings if the context changes. For example, two people could get into a fight online and call each other nasty names. If we knew that they were friends and this was a form of kidding around, the online behavior would be very different from two strangers who had just pissed each other off. Context is hard to convey online.
When I was an undergraduate in the late 1960s, Erving Goffman was probably my favorite sociologist. It’s good to see his insights being used to understand our present world. (GW)
What sociologist Erving Goffman could tell us about social networking and online identity | O’Reilly Radar | Andy Oram | 26 October 2009
More that sociologist Erving Goffman could tell us about social networking and online identity | O’Reilly Radar | Andy Oram | 23 November 2009
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