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Front Stage
The front stage is the term coined by sociologist Erving Goffman who defines it as, "that part of a dramaturgical performance that generally functions in rather fixed and general ways to define the situation for those who observe the performance"(Ritzer, 2003). Erving Goffman was a symbolic interactionist who had a dramaturgical approach to a person's sence of self. The front stage is one of three residual domains that the self uses as impression management; there is also the back stage and the outside.

Divisions of the Front Stage
Within the front stage, Goffman differentiated between the setting and the personal front.

Setting
The setting is the "physical scene that ordinarily must be there if the actors are to engage in a dramaturgical performance. Without it, the actors usually cannot perform. For example, a surgeon generally requires an operating room, a taxi driver a cab, and an ice skater and ice rink"(Ritzer, 2003).

Personal Front
The personal front "consists of those items of expressive equipment that the audience identifies with the performers and expects them to carry with them into the setting. A surgon, for instance, is expected to dress in a medical gown, have certain instruments, and son on"(Ritzer, 2003). The personal front is also subdivided into two categories known as the appearance which "include those items that tell us the performer's social status" and the manner which "tells the audience what sort of role the performer expects to play in the situation"(Ritzer, 2003).

Dramaturgy
This is Goffman's "view of social life as a series of dramatic performances akin to those that take place in the theater"(Ritzer, 2003).

The Self
Goffman viewed the self as "a sense of who one is that is a dramatic effect emerging from the immediate dramaturgical scene being presented"(Ritzer, 2003).

Impression Management
This term is defined as "the techniques actors use to maintain certain impressions in the face of problems they are likely to encounter and the methods they use to cope with these problems"(Ritzer, 2003).

Back Stage
The back stage is the opposite of the front stage, this is "where facts suppressed in the front stage or various kinds of informal actions may appear. a back stageis usually adgacent to the front stage, but it is also cut off from it. Performers can reliably expect no members of their front audience to appear in the back"(Ritzer, 2003).

Outside
The outside is "neither front nor back; literally outside the realm of the performance"(Ritzer, 2003).

Applications
The front stage theory is still being used today. An example of this is in Ellen Barton's journal in the Journal of Business and Technical Communication where she explains how physicians use the front stage. Here she states, "My general claim in this article, then, is that organization of the genre of treatment discussion allows physicians to do, appear to do, or avoid doing the difficult task of presention a prognosis on the front stage of medical oncology encounters. We can see evidence for this claim in ways physicians avoid, forground, background, and answer questions abour prognosis" (Barton, 2004). Another example of this theory being used today is in Rebecca Tardy's journal where she writes about how women use front stage to show that they are good moms. Here she states, "The way in which the women shared information and talked about their health-oriented experiences, especially with regard to their children, served as a sort of job requirement and standard for evaluation as good mothers. Many of these women had once had jobs/careers before becoming stay-at-home moms.With this change, they needed to make new friends and create new roles for themselves. The talk was noted as serving a vital role in their adaptation. As Betty observed, talk about pregnancy, childbirth, and child development is what bonds us women together" (Tardy, 2000). A third example of the front stage theory being used today is shown by Sue Spivey who writes about how nude dancers present themselves on stage and off stage. Here she writes, "On stage, dancers resist labels and bebaviors of customers. Backstage, dancers develop resistance as a collective solidarity building process. Goffman's (1959) dramaturgical analysis of life as a theatrical performance and the concept of counterfeit intimacy are frequently used to examine dancer-customer interaction in strip bars. Here the dancer employs a host of intimacy tactics to deceive the customer into thinking she is genuinely interested in sexual relations in exchange for his money" (Spivey, 2005).

Additional Sources

 * http://www.csudh.edu/dearhabermas/goffman01.htm