Erwin Goffman is considered the founder of dramatic sociology – one of the varieties of symbolic interactionism and understanding sociology. For E. Hoffman, the world of human interaction is a field of play, the idea of which must be established through sociological research. At the heart of the sociodramatic perspective is comparing the everyday world with dramatic action.
In the dramatic concept, the starting point is the metaphor of the social teamwork of people: society is a huge theater. At the same time, people’s roles and postures can be considered typical social representations, i.e., symbolic designations of agreements between people about their behavior (Goffman, 1959). The teamwork of members of society manifests itself as one significant symbolic joint action and society as a series of situations in which people interact, impress and explain their behavior to themselves and others.
Goffman imagined social communication as a continuous series of small dramas that happen to everyone and where, as performers, people play themselves. As a drama, not only everyday quarrels, squabbles or conflicts can manifest themselves, where a surge of emotions and passions seems to reach its climax (How Communication Works, 2017). Any everyday event is inherently already a dramatic performance, since people, even in the circle of loved ones, constantly put on and take off social masks, create scenarios for each following situation themselves, and play it out according to unwritten social rules created by traditions and customs or imagination and fantasy.
This theory can be applied to any life situation due to its universality. The comparison of life with the stage can be considered very accurate because a theatrical performance tells about the life and reflects events that took place in the past or were described in a book. Even though on the stage, the actors play the events that have already passed, they show emotions as if they are happening right now. Life within the framework of this theory is the stage, and people are actors, which looks true.
References
How Communication Works. (2017). Presentation of Self and Impression Management: Erving Goffman’s Sociology[Video]. YouTube. Web.
Goffman, E. (1959). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Anchor Books.