Oh, I'm just joking!
Moving on, to presentation of the self!
Week five saw us discussing the topic of self presentation as how we present ourselves in keeping with the social interactions we are 'faced' with (too early to be punny? Perhaps...) and the social scenes in which these interactions are set.
We all interact in certain "appropriate" ways and do (or do not do) certain things in order to have a known common courtesy. But how do we know these unspoken rules? Through social integration with those around us, especially parents and other older formative figures, we learn from an early age what is acceptable interaction and what is not.
Throughout the reading, Goffman refers to individuals as having 'face' (refer to my earlier, ridiculously lame pun) which, basically refers to a persons social dignity. Having good face is part and parcel with complying with the unwritten laws, moralities and ethics within social interaction. Our face becomes so important to us that, according to Goffman, losing face is the equivalent to "social death".
Goffman sees our daily lives and the interactions between individuals as performances that are consistently changing over time with the changing roles undertaken in our everyday lives.
This reading really interested me and got me thinking about when I've had a severely face damaging situation happen to me and how I overcame it. What about you? How do you reincarnate after a slight social death? Are we taught how to socially recuperate after a severe face-ruining incident?
Food for though... Or face... I'm hungry so we will leave it here!
Till next week!
Not many uni assignments can claim to be fun, unfortunately. :-(
ReplyDeleteI found your blog really easy to read and it gave me further insight into this whole idea of keeping good “face” by presenting performances of our self in ways which meet the underlying and socialised norms associated with a certain social interaction. When I read this it reminded me of an article I have previously read which talks about sexual scripts in popular media which presents this idea that gender differences in sexuality are shaped and controlled by tradition sexual scripts which provide guidelines for whom, when, where, why, and how to perform ones sexuality in accordance with their gender. I know you mentioned how micro interactions between family members other close to us can provide us with these kind of scripts (which I totally agree with) but such scripts are also delivered by macro institutions such as the example of the media in this article:
ReplyDelete- Carpenter, L.,(1998)From girls into women: scripts for sexuality and romance in seventeen magazine, The journal of Sex research, 35,(2).
I thought id pop it up here for you to read if you were interested that is no obligation.
Cheers