ABSTRACT
Erving Goffman drew a radical line right across the social interaction existence on the one side what is presented and what is or is made visible in the interaction with others (frontstage), and on the other side what is not presented or remains hidden (backstage). Goffman was programmatically 'meta', and his overriding thesis is said to have been 'don't take the world at face value'. This is a good scholarly point of departure, but it does not work particularly well in social interaction, because there trust seems to be more important than doubt. Goffman's object of study was the interaction order, and, within that framework, three themes regarding social interaction: politeness/respect, social illusions, and – to a lesser degree – crisis in the interaction order. Goffman's entire project has to do with influencing others and avoiding influence from others. Goffman's approach was frame analytic long before he wrote the book on frame analysis as a method.
