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Dramaturgy points to a family of terms associated with the idea of analyzing selectively symbolized action — whether this be textual, prose or poetry, or social action. In social science, dramaturgy is a perspective that makes sense of action at several levels whether it is carried out by organizations, groups or individual actors. Dramaturgy concerns how a performance becomes the basis for order and ordering, and connotes analysis of the social by use of the theatric metaphor. How are performances enacted. With what effect(s). What symbols are used to convey this action. It assumes feedback and reciprocity from an audience, a process by which claims are validated (verbal or non-verbal, written or electronic), and modes of remedy are advanced. Failure to produce feedback and reciprocity requires repair, apology, or an explanation. It is likely that the appeal of dramaturgy is its applicability to the increasing number of situations in mass society in which strangers must negotiate in the absence of shared values, beliefs, kin or ethnic ties.
Erving Goffman has most consistently and systematically employed dramaturgical analysis. Goffman’s twin concerns from the beginning were the interaction order and the presentation of a performance in that context. He states (1959: ix) ”I shall consider the ways in which the individual in ordinary work situations presents himself and his activities, the ways in which he guides and controls the impression they form of him, and the kinds of things he may or may not do while sustaining his performance before them. Here, dramaturgy is about the actor s impression management. This might be called the impression management aspect of dramaturgy. His strong connection to dramaturgy is signaled best by the organizing metaphors he employs, many of them taken from the theatre, front and back stage, script, role, audience, et al. It is likely that the range of concepts he uses are designed to shift emphases while illuminating the interaction order itself. There is also an emotional aspect of dramaturgy — the contingencies that arise in performing. Goffman’s dramaturgy is powerful because it features the impression management of performances that are emotionally loaded and mutually recognizable. Goffman’s aim is to see how interaction permits order by sanctioning performances and sustaining collaboration. Order is revealed in and through interaction, not via a priori concepts such as personality, values, norms, or social systems. Goffman struggled to show how actors display order and ordering conventions in many situations, with an eye always to ways humans adapt, interpret, read off and make sense of others behavior. Life is not scripted, but it is performative. This does not assume life-as-chaos, nor does it require positing people as ”puppets with attributed feelings, aims, goals and a repertoire of strategies and tactics. Even an insincere performance is a performance.
Bibliography:
- Goffman, E. (1959) Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Doubleday Anchor, Garden City, NY.
- Goffman, E. (1983a) The interaction order. American Sociological Review 48: 1—17.
- Goffman, (1983b) Felicity s condition. American Journal of Sociology 89 (1): 1—53.
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