More that sociologist Erving Goffman could tell us about social networking and Internet identity

After posting some thoughts a month ago about Erving Goffman's classic sociological text, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, I heard from a reader who urged me to try out a deeper work of Goffman's, Frame Analysis (Harper Colophon, 1974). This blog presents the thoughts that came to mind as I made my way through that long and rambling work.

Let me start by shining a light on an odd phenomenon we've all experienced online. Lots of people on mailing lists, forums, and social networks react with great alarm when they witness heated arguments. This reaction, in my opinion, stems from an ingrained defense mechanism whose intensity verges on the physiological. We've all learned, from our first forays to the playground as children, that rough words easily escalate to blows. So we react to these words in ways to protect ourselves and others.

Rationally, this defense mechanism wouldn't justify intervening in an online argument. The people arguing could well be on separate continents, and have close to zero chance of approaching each other for battle before they cool down.

When asked why forum participants insert themselves between the fighters--just as they would in a real-life brawl--they usually say, "It's because I'm afraid of allowing a precedent to be set on this forum; I might be attacked the same way." But this still begs the question of what's wrong with an online argument. No forum member is likely to be a victim of violence.

We can apply Goffman's frame analysis to explain the forum members' distress. It's what he calls a keying: we automatically apply the lessons of real-life experiences to artificial ones. Keying allows us to invest artificial circumstances--plays, ceremonies, court appearances, you name it--with added meaning.

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What sociologist Erving Goffman could tell us about social networking and Internet identity

I just finished Erving Goffman's classic sociological text, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. A friend told me to read this for an exploration into what "identity" means online, and I did find that the book offers some useful frameworks.

I have to admit, to start with, that it's a rather distasteful work: personally, I don't see my entire life as a performance and everyone around me as an audience. That seems to be just what Goffmn wants me to do. (He calls this attitude his "dramaturgical perspective.")

Furthermore, the book was published in 1959, just before the social revolution of the 1960s exploded the expectations of formality it documents--all the assumptions about proper behavior, social distinctions, making a good impression, and so forth. These distinctions remain, of course, but people tend to behave in ways that consciously disavow differences in class and status instead of highlighting them (at least in the United States).

Goffman's underlying framework is still valid, though, and it casts a useful light on some of the dilemmas of going online.

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