# data[].attributes.headline
Annie Hall scene - great example of impression management in action

# data[].attributes.subject
Annie Hall scene - great example of impression management in action

# data[].attributes.headline
Documentary Film on Goffman and Gender Codes

# data[].attributes.subject
Documentary Film on Goffman and Gender Codes

# data[].attributes.body
(This film has some potentially confronting scenes)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Written and directed by MEF Executive Director Sut Jhally, The Codes of Gender applies the late sociologist Erving Goffman's groundbreaking analysis of advertising to the contemporary commercial landscape, showing how one of American popular culture's most influential forms communicates normative ideas about masculinity and femininity.

In striking visual detail, The Codes of Gender explores Goffman's central claim that gender ideals are the result of ritualized cultural performance, uncovering a remarkable pattern of masculine and feminine displays and poses.

It looks beyond advertising as a medium that simply sells products, and beyond analyses of gender that focus on biological difference or issues of objectification and beauty, to provide a clear-eyed view of the two-tiered terrain of identity and power relations.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Written and directed by MEF Executive Director Sut Jhally, The Codes of Gender applies the late sociologist Erving Goffman's groundbreaking analysis of advertising to the contemporary commercial landscape, showing how one of American popular culture's most influential forms communicates normative ideas about masculinity and femininity.

# data[].attributes.headline
Article: Erving Goffman: An Appreciation

# data[].attributes.subject
Article: Erving Goffman: An Appreciation

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Social Science Bites : Peter Lunt on Erving Goffman

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In this Social Science Bites podcast, social psychologist Peter Lunt, professor of media and communication at the University of Leicester, discusses his own inquiries into Goffman's corpus, especially how Goffman approached many of his subjects with "an ethnographer's eye."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
free thinking - rauschenberg - performance

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
identity and the writings of erving goffman.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Free Thinking - Rauschenberg - performance, identity and the writings of Erving Goffman., Arts and Ideas - BBC Radio 3

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
What price the self in the 21st century? with Dexter Dalwood, Susie Scott + Tom McCarthy

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Erving Goffman, Thinking Allowed - BBC Radio 4

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Laurie Taylor with a special programme on the work and influence the Canadian sociologist.

# data[].attributes.headline
NYT Opinion Piece on Goffman, Stigma and Reality TV

# data[].attributes.subject
NYT Opinion Piece on Goffman, Stigma and Reality TV

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In ''Behavior in Public Places,'' Mr. Goffman explored the deep, and often tortured, structure of the most mundane activities. Party guests who have said goodbye to everyone and departed may furtively return to pick up something they forgot, knowing they can't easily rejoin a group after formally taking leave. People step onto crowded elevators and stare at the numbers overhead, rather than make eye contact with fellow passengers, to avoid an uncomfortable ''mutual openness'' among strangers in a confined space.

Mr. Goffman would not have wondered why people willingly invited film crews into their homes. The camera does not intrude on real life because real life -- as long as two or more people are present -- is itself a highly self-conscious performance. Ozzy Osbourne's family members were already engaged in intricate dramas for the benefit of one another. Putting them on television merely enlarged the size of the audience.

It was in ''Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity,'' Mr. Goffman's best-known work, that he explained what is so often at stake in our personal minidramas.

As Mr. Goffman saw it, people with stigmas of all kinds -- for whom he had the greatest sympathy -- are in a constant struggle for acceptance from the harshly judgmental ''normals.'' Mr. Goffman charted many of the techniques the stigmatized employ, for better or worse, as a way to avoid societal condemnation. Some physical deformities can be removed by surgery. Where the disdain is based on identity, like membership in a disfavored religion or race, it may be possible to ''pass'' as a member of the majority.

More frequently, the techniques involve performance. A person with an obvious stigma may, upon encountering a normal, immediately refer to, say, a missing limb, to get the awkwardness over quickly. In all cases, the goal of the stigmatized person, Mr. Goffman argued, is that ''those who have dealings with him'' be persuaded to ''accord him the respect and regard'' he would receive but for his stigma.

Reality TV and the current crop of nasty game shows are a broadcast version of Mr. Goffman's eternal struggle between the normals and the stigmatized. On reality shows, the dramatic subtext is whether the participants, based on their performance, will be deemed defective by the home audience. Are the Osbournes -- is each Osbourne -- cool or creepy? On any given season of MTV's ''Real World,'' who is endearing and who is the housemate from hell?

The battle lines are clearer on the competition shows, where loss seems to convey a stigma. But the format almost invariably gives losers a chance to make a direct plea for acceptance to people, presumed to be normals, at home. When a contestant is voted off ''Weakest Link,'' he gets a few seconds to explain his failure. (''I knew it, really -- I just froze.'')

The reason reality TV and humiliation-based game shows work is that they are stigma performances that are win-win for all participants. Audiences have the dubious satisfaction of gawking at the humiliation of the unintelligent and the ostracized and those they regard as freakish. At the same time, the shows give the participants -- from Anna Nicole Smith at home to the person who answers every question wrong on ''Weakest Link'' -- the chance to throw off their stigmas. Because no matter how defective they appear, they have achieved the ultimate form of acceptance in America today: they have appeared on television.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
anna nicole smith show  the (tv program)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Editorial Observer; America's Favorite Television Fare? The Normals vs. the Stigmatized

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Editorial Observer on 'reality' television shows that suggest Americans are obsessed with travails of people who have something just a bit wrong with them; quotes late sociologist Erving Goffman, who wrote that most people are desperately insecure about who they are and so put on little performances to present acceptable selves to world; says Goffman would not have wondered why Anna Nichole Smith or Ozzy Osborne would invite in film crews

# data[].attributes.headline
Article on Impression Management and Vegetarians and Vegans

# data[].attributes.subject
Article on Impression Management and Vegetarians and Vegans

# data[].attributes.headline
Article on Impression Management in Online Dating

# data[].attributes.subject
Article on Impression Management in Online Dating

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Erving Goffman was a sociologist who used theater terminology to analyze everyday interactions, and called this method dramaturgy. Erving Goffman and You exp...

# data[].attributes.body
Tactful Inattention

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Erving Goffman and You: Tactful Inattention

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Public transportation always seems to encourage a strong use of what Erving Goffman would call "tact". The passenger next to Sam is carrying on a loud, private conversation. Sam pretends to be disinterested because she doesn't want to cause a scene and call out the person next to her for disrupting her commute.

# data[].attributes.headline
In this clip we see two of Goffman's conclusions in action. 

# data[].attributes.subject
In this clip we see two of Goffman's conclusions in action. 

# data[].attributes.body
1. Watch Kanye: to go off script makes even the most confident people very nervous
2. Watch Mike: bystanders rush to 'impression management' by acting as though everything is normal

# data[].attributes.headline
What happens when people go 'off script' and don't play along with the story?

# data[].attributes.subject
What happens when people go 'off script' and don't play along with the story?

# data[].attributes.body
(warning: this clip contains swearing)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Awesome scene when the insane John Givings does a reality check on Frank and April Wheeler in Revolutionary Road!

# data[].attributes.headline
Without the correct words the gestures and social cues become obvious. How much of the 'backstage' leaks through?

# data[].attributes.subject
Without the correct words the gestures and social cues become obvious. How much of the 'backstage' leaks through?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
"INAUGURATION DAY" — A Bad Lip Reading of Donald Trump's Inauguration

# data[].attributes.headline
BBC Graphic Intro to Goffman's Dramaturgy

# data[].attributes.subject
BBC Graphic Intro to Goffman's Dramaturgy