Overview

This text is Goffman’s last book, and focuses on an unusual subject for Goffman. Frame analysis looks at the organization and analysis of human experience and the individual. Admittedly, this still is within the framework of sociology, but the focus still returns to the individual.

Frame analysis is about how we make sense of things. How we understand “what is going on?” This process involves framing, which is the application of certain cognitive procedures onto given situations. Goffman uses a very metaphorical analysis to these, especially with respect to keying, which is a very metaphorical take on cognition and experience.

Notes:

The foreword has a nice look at Goffman’s character, his perspective on rules and society. Goffman respected rules, but was also a rule breaker. He wants to uncover truths, but many of his truths are cold ones. Goffman is notable in linking microsociology to macrosociology. (p. xvii)

Goffman offers an interesting turn on the question of reality: Instead of asking what is real, Goffman echoes James’s question: “Under what circumstances do we think things are real?” (p. 2) This connection connects William James and the tradition of phenomenology.

Goffman’s aim is to isolate frameworks, understand what is going on within perspectives. “My aim is to try to isolate some of the basic frameworks of understanding available in our society for making sense out of events and to analyze the special vulnerabilities to which these frames of reference are subject. I start wit the fact that from an individual’s particular point of view, while one thing may be momentarily appear to be what is really going on, in fact what is actually happening is plainly a joke, or a dream, or an accident, or a mistake, or a misunderstanding, or a deception, or a theatrical performance, and so forth.” (p. 10) A strip is a sequence of actions. Frame analysis is meant as a slogan to refer to the examination of the organization of experience.

Frameworks are tools for meaning making and discovery. They are employed whenever we recognize an event as occurring in some context. The goal is to recognize and organize occurrences in meaningful ways: essentially this is a theory of cognition. There are many and various frameworks that we use and can be applied. One example is the physical framework vs the sign framework, where one is natural and bodily while the other is abstract and cognitive. This seems like an attempt to generalize and harmonize varying theories on human nature. (p. 21)

Analyzing a game of checkers: Goffman’s approach is very different from the standard AI perspective. Frameworks address either physical or social logic, but to be human requires both. Events may be described within a framework, and answers the question “what is going on?”. Frameworks have dependency, social frameworks are rather complex. In checkers game, examples of what is going on could be, “he is moving a piece”, “he is moving his arm and holding something”, “they are playing checkers”, “he is winning”, etc. (p. 24)

Goals and effects of frameworks: (p. 36)
1) To explain all events (the inexplicable is intolerable)
2) Push the limits of explanation
3) Learning competence in actions (“mufflings” or human slips)
4) Produce unforseen consequences (significant events may be incidentally produced)
5) There is a variability of frameworks, which have different perspectives on situations, mixing natural with social, bodily with sublime or social. Not the Sims as an example which really mixes these.

Keying

Keying is a means of understanding a framework in terms of another. Essentially it is a frame metaphor. It plays an important role in understanding what is going on. The main example Goffman uses is play. Play fighting is not real fighting, but it can be accidentally mistaken as such. It borrows many devices from fighting in an almost metaphorical manner. (p.45)

Make believe, contests, ceremonies and simulation (Goffman calls this “technical reproduction”) are instances of frame application. A simulation for “practicing” relates this to both Baudrillard and role-learning/practice/performance. Simulation in this context is used to artificially replicate certain kinds of events for some audience, and this can be understood as a simulation of something else. (p. 59) Goffman cites examples in medical training (and other serious examples), as well as an example of soldiers demonstrating riot equipment to an audience of 3000 by having a fake “mob” composed of soldiers dressed as hippies rioting and then being suppressed by tear gass. This can very naturally extend to Baudrillard. Goffman is trying to address how we understand things in terms of others, but Baudrillard’s answer is that we descend to infinite regress of references, that real events are indistinguishable from real ones. Nonetheless, we need to give Goffman some credit, because whether events truly are real or simulacra, we, as observers, do tend to make that distinction.

Keyings are adaptations of common models. Derivative models may be seen as keyings of each other, or may be re-keyed themselves. It would help to look at examples where the subjects of keyings are media and media artifacts, where adaptations may be considered rekeyings when an artifact is adapted from play to print to film, etc. Goffman intends his argument to be much more generalized, though, and we can consider keyings of social situations and examples, as well. A play or film about homosexual lovers in a war may be considered keyings of a the real thing, but a real holdup experienced on a street may be considered a keying of one seen in TV or film. In this sense, all keyings hinge on representation and are simulated. (p. 79)

Fabrication and Deceit

Goffman is often concerned with deceit. In this section, he is concerned with fabrications, both benign and exploitative. These are fabrications of experience: posing and disguising one experience in terms of another. Fabrication disguises impressions of people with each other and with situations. (p. 103) An example is a Dear Abby letter, on (p. 105) where a mother is taken aback by discovering (via rummaging through thier things) that her daughters are using birth control. There are several layers to this: Fabrication implies the misrepresentation of something false as true. The mother assumes the natural relationship with her daughters as implying their absence of using birth control, or that the daughters should be open and honest with her about all things that she might see as important. Likewise the mother is also representing falsely because her presentation as an honest mother would involve not snooping through her daughters’ things. In this example, there are many layers of assumptions and presentations, but these are all formed around the very simple events of what is going on. Essentially, this is one way of looking at how a straightforward situation is turned into a big deal.

Suspicion and doubt help organize the framing of fabrication and deception. These operate on whether we think a situation is real or false. These are natural sensations, and must exist at all times, to some degree or another. (p. 122)

The Theatrical Frame

Reviewing the theatrical frame: actors are both characters and performers. The audience acts as a vicarious conspirator. Nonetheless, staged performance is very different from real life. (p. 130)

Conventions arise in various media- “frames”, representative of real models, but must take on expressions or conventions to adequately represent meaningful actions. On stage: a novel adaptation, the adaptation process is a matter of transforming novel conventions into stage ones. In this sense, we might find a general device for adaptation. This involves a certain supposition of sufficiency in character presentation: All that is to be known is shown. (p. 149)

More on Fabrication

On deception as a power relation: the imposition of a deceptive frame yields containment over subjects, who controls the deception has a sort of power of belief. The process is referential: The devices of deception are secret monitoring, penetration, entrapment. All of these are powerful because of knowledge management. This connects to Goffman’s work on secrets. (p. 177)

Fabrication of behavior in gay culture, based on [farce of] stereotypical feminine behavior. This may further be simulated by non-gay individuals, adding another frame of reference. There is a nice Baudrillard connection here. The matter of cultural acceptability is dependent on frame. (p. 194)

Out of frame activity

Goffman cites a few “scene” like examples of behavior, where someone causes a great deal of fuss by breaking rules of actions. Decorum dictates to ignore or suppress such behavior. A scene not only disrupts a role, but the continuity of a frame. What is the role to frame relation?

Anchoring of Activity

How do we know what is real? How is a frame activity grounded in reality? Keying and fabrication lets us know how to construct reality. William James: Reality must be convincing. To seem adequately real, things must be spectacular. To seem natural, TV or radio must take extreme care. But this is a form of deception. (p. 251)

Continuity is demanded between actors and characters. Even when an actor plays a role, the role becomes associated with the actor, leading to a social concern. Goffman’s examples are actors who play risque roles later moving to play more saintly ones, and encountering a sort of backlash (p. 277). This can relate to Goffman’s earlier work on audience segregation, for instance the priest who did not want to go swimming with his congregation.

On ambiguity and how to understand it: Ambiguity incurs doubt and uncertainty. It has its foundation in error, misappropriation of frames. Note: Experience is a confrontation with an order of existence. Thus, a misperception of a fact is a misperception of existence. Thus, the actor uses not the wrong word, but the wrong language. Wittgenstein ref. (p. 308)

Frame analysis of talk

Application of keying and frame analysis to conversation: Heavily embodied nature of conversation leads to a density of keying, and introduction of many layers. Compare especially with computer mediated communication, which develops conventions, but lacks the key density of conversation. Conversation involves a certain looseness to the world. (p. 502)

On replaying: “A tale or an anecdote, that is, a replaying, is not merely any reporting of a past event. In the fullest sense, it is such a statement couched from the personal perspective of an actual or potential participant who is located so that some temporal, dramatic development of the reported event proceeds from that starting point. A replaying will therefore, incidentally, be something that listeners can empathetically insert themselves into, vicariously reexperiencing what took place. A replaying, in brief, recounts a personal experience, not merely reports on an event.” (p. 504)

Description is narrative, it is presented dramatically, and operates on a scripted nature of performances and stories. Description and narrative portray a total knowledge (or complete knowability) of the situation involved, where, realistically, that is false. Goffman uses heavy reference to playing and recording of events here, and this metaphor informs his argument. (p. 508)

Conclusion

Ordinary behavior has symbolization, but symbolized action is more akin to dance. But it ultimately derives from the body. (p. 569) Goffman concludes by citing Merleau-Ponty, in that the self is defined in terms of the other. (p. 575-576)