Week 2 - Goffman... again

This week we discussed Goffman’s idea of dramaturgy. Goffman borrowed this term from theatre and applied it to social interactionism as a metaphor for describing everyday life as a performance with actors, a setting and an audience. The article I looked at this week called The Power of Peers: Why Some Students Bully Others to Conform by Burns & al. uses Goffman’s dramaturgical metaphor to analyse why bullying occurs. I’ll give you a quick summary of the articles findings with Goffman in mind. In the circumstance of bullying, the bully and/or the victim is the actor, the bystanders are the audience and school is the setting. It is explained that each of these attributes contribute to and can modify the performance. The bully is concerned with presenting a specific self and will modify his or her performance based on the reaction of the audience to maintain their desired image of self. This is also true of the victim as the actor. Goffman’s theory suggests that each of these situational factors and integrated performances of self act to control what happens in an interaction. For example, if there are bystanders present to watch the bullying interaction and form an audience then the victim, as an actor, will react to the bullying in a certain way in attempt to maintain their presentation of self in front of the audience. This modified behaviour will consequently affect the bully’s behaviour. All of these factors work to control the interaction. The article also explains school bullying in terms of Goffman’s front-stage and back-stage. The actual act of bullying is described as a front-stage performance. However, the feelings of superiority, popularity and power exhibited in the front-stage may not translate to the back-stage.

The overall study and analysis in the article is quite interesting and I would recommend giving it a quick read. If you do, don’t hesitate to leave a comment and let me know what you think!      

Reference:

Brown, G, Burns, S, Cross, D, Maycock, B 2008, 'The power of peers: Why some students bully others to conform', Qualitative Health Research, 18, 12, 1704-1716, 30/08/2012,
http://icbtt.arizona.edu/sites/default/files/The%20Power%20of%20Peers-%20Why%20Some%20Students%20Bully%20Others%20to%20Conform.pdf