Dramaturgy

Assumptions of Dramaturgy: Status, Role, and Context

Goffman elaborated several areas of interaction to analyze using status, role, and context as starting points. Status refers to social status represented by a person in an interaction (the actor). An example of a status would be “police officer.” Role refers to the commonly accepted “scripts” for behaving attached to a status. For example, a police officer (actor) is expected to speak authoritatively, and there is a fairly routine “script” for a traffic stop, so the general public (audience) knows what to expect in that interaction (play). Actors try to deliver believable “performances” using impression management strategies. Impression management refers to using a wide array of communicative strategies that are specifically intended to give the audience a desired perception of the actor. To continue the example, the police uniform, ticket book (props), authoritative tone of voice, and body language are all used to legitimate the actor's role as police officer, making it believable and thereby favorably managing the impression being made on the audience. In the “backstage” context of the police station locker room, the police officer will be out of his or her authoritative role (being backstage with other actors); this will change the impression management strategy to that of a colleague. The “front stage” performance of authoritative police officer will be dropped. People change their performances for each role that they play in life. For example, when the police officer goes home and enters the status of “father” by interacting with his son, he will perform yet a different role.

The Players

For any interaction, there are actors or “performers,” audiences, and outsiders. A “team” is composed of actors in a performance (interaction). Actors share a purpose of managing how they are perceived and may share practical goals. The audience is in the position of making sense of, and reacting to, the play being presented, having knowledge that there is a play (interaction) going on. They only know what is presented in the “front stage” and are not allowed in the “backstage.” Outsiders are bystanders or others present but uninvolved in the interaction, who have varying levels and kinds of knowledge about the play. The exceptions to this model are fruitful for studying deviance. Goffman identifies several

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