User:Dtjanamarieb/backstage

Back Stage
Back Stage is the idea that some of our behavior takes place “Back Stage” without an audience, in a setting where we may intentionally disregard or contradict the performances we are giving when an audience is present. Back Stage is one of two places, that separate the conduct of our behavior that Erving Goffman recognizes as significant structural factor of self-presentation. An actor reveals different informal facts that are not shown on the front stage. The back stage is completely separate from the front stage. No members of the audience can appear in the backstage if they do then the actor is now frontstage. Using the metaphor of a waitress, the waitress would not want the customers to see her taking a smoke break or speaking rudely to the cooks. Her smoke break or time in the kitchen would be seen as the backstage and the time she is serving customers as the front.

Dramaturgy
Developed primarily by the symbolic interactionist Erving Goffman, the dramaturgical perspective is a way of looking at and analyzing social interation through the theatrical metaphor of the stage, actors, and audiences. When someone interacts they become the actor and the others will relate to the actor as the audience. Actor use a social script to guide them in what is expected of them in each situation. From the dramaturgical perspective, the self is made up of different roles that people play, the main goal of the social actor is to perform their different selves in ways that create and maintain particular impressions. Especially, liked impressions because actors protect the integrity of their performance. Actors and audiences are dependent on eachother so together they used different ways to support and protect each member involved. When someone acts embarrassed, for example, it shows their audience that they messed up somewhere in their performance, but the actor remains committed to the role and trys to act out their role better in the future.

Symbolic Interactionism
Every day people interact by giving meaning to the symbols that have been defined. People give meanings to certain things and react based on how they interpret the meanings. These meanings are derived from people who interact with other people. For example, Osceola may be a symbol to FSU fans that interprets him as great and unconquered leader, while others view Osceola as a sign of discrimination and oppression that the Seminole tribe had to endure. However, people who take pride in their FSU mascot may also come into contact with others who view the FSU symbol as recognition of the negative perspective of what happened to the Seminoles when they were forced to move to a reservation and this interaction re-defines what Osceola means to them. And people who take offense to Osceola as being the FSU mascot may also see the positive aspect through their interaction with Seminole fans that the FSU Seminoles carry the pride of the unconquered Seminole tribe also redefining their definition. People use and rely on symbols they have defined throughout their everyday lives.

Erving Goffman
The sociological theorist who was a professor in the sociology department at University of California at Berkeley and later at Ivy League's University of Pennsylvania. He died the year he was elected President of the American Sociological Association in 1982. He was unable to give his presidential address because of his illness. "Randall Collins says of his address: Everyone wondered what he would do for his presidential address: a straight, traditional presentation seemed unthinkable for Goffman with his reputation as an iconoclast....we got a far more dramatic messasge: presidential address canceled, Goffman dying. It was an appropriately Goffmanian way to go out." (Ritzer 2007: 143)

Staging the Self
The concept that in every situation people "stage" themselves differently. Although William James studied this over a century ago, Erving Goffman wrote about the dramaturgical perspective of the 'self. Like actors on a stage humans translate desires, feelings, beliefs, and self-images into communicable form, drawing on words, gestures, scripts, props, scenery, and various features of our appearance. (Sandstrom 2006). By doing this we participate in role "performances" that are express through communication our intentions and identities to the "audience" in every situation. Humans have the power to control what others think of them by acting certain ways called Impression management. The audience picks up on signs and symbols to determine who we are when we act out our personal front. Our personal front is the resources we "consciously or unconsciously draw on in our everyday interactions and performances." (Sandstrom 2006: 105) There are three kinds of expressive resources: Setting, Appearance, and Manner. The setting is the physical location of the scene where communication happens. Appearance is "personal items that identify us as individuals." What we wear how we do our hair ect. And last but certainly not least Manner is the "mood, dispostion, or style of behavior we display as performers." (Sandstrom 2006: 106) The way we perform while during interaction controlling our personal fronts and the management of others' impressions in the process of dramatic realization. (Sandrom 2006)When we note certain things about ourselves that people might not have noticed making them significant to others through our talented performances.