In true Goffman style and as a micro-sociologist, this essay will look at the micro interactions of each person and setting in the clip shown below (50:50 – 57:00). Goffman stipulates that a line is a combination of both verbal and nonverbal acts through which a person shows their understanding of a situation, the participating parties and an evaluation of himself (1967). It is tempting to use recipe knowledge (Heritage 1984) to make sense of why and how people conduct themselves on an interview show with an audience, however, Goffman’s theory of dramaturgy and maintenance of face follow a pattern with each micro-interaction that occurs and this will be used as a framework for analysis.
Seek and You Shall Find
The first micro-interaction that occurs in the clip is the conversation between a panel member, Catherine Deveny and a member of the audience (Liz Hooper) and shows how maintenance of face happens.
LIZ HOOPER: Um with the so called...seeming rise of noisy atheism, I'm wondering, Catherine, how are you sure that there is [coughs]...there is no God and is there anything that would convince you...ah...either to give up on atheism and become an agnostic or a theist or even a Christian?
CATHERINE DEVENY: That's a really good question. I couldn't be a Christian because I'm intolerant of intolerance but I don't think anyone could call themselves a 100% atheist. I believe that there could be a God in the same way that I believe that there could be a Tooth Fairy, a Father Christmas or an Easter Bunny so it’s all - there's no proof to it but it’s not only...
(Excerpt from 50:50)
Within this interaction the Liz Hooper speaks with a few pauses to catch her throat and gets the words mixed up on her question. This can potentially be an action that causes the loss of face – which in this circumstance means the avoidance of being ‘shamefaced’ (Goffman 1967, p7). Deveny responds to this through attempting to save Hooper’s face and not embarrass her – this is accomplished when she thanks her for her question. Deveny’s tone is friendly and she answers the question and addresses Liz Hooper directly – only looking to her and interacting with her despite all of the other people in the studio. Deference applies particularly to the audience (Goffman 1967). The politeness that deference implies between two parties for the sake of maintaining presentation of the self is revealed in the way Deveny treats the audience member.
There is a theme with the examples of the panellists’ interactions of Goffman’s frontstage notion. Stages are an important factor that this essay needs to consider. The stages that Goffman sets out include: a frontstage (has a performer and an audience where actions are under surveillance) and a backstage (has no audience and allows out of character behaviours to occur) (1971). Q&A definitely fosters a frontstage because it has a live studio audience (see Figure 1&2) and also the wider audience of the Australian public. This emphasises the need for facework and maintenance of expressive control and impression management.
Figure 1
Figure 2
Fierravanti-Wells conducts interesting facework as an interactant on Q&A. During her question ‘Do you believe in God’ (refer to 53:13) she uses her body language to construct her manner (Goffman 1971). According to Goffman, manner warns the audience of the expected manner the performer will play in a circumstance (1971). She begins by swinging her body from side to side in her chair and then looking quickly from left to right from halfway through her answer. She is not looking at Tony Jones nor the other panellists but neither is she focused on the audience. Fierravanti-Wells gives the impression of not understanding her role or her expectations of her behaviour. Clearly, she knows what she wants to say (particularly the way she is dressed indicates this and is defined through her ‘appearance’) but in this setting her manner and her role are undefined by her and as a consequence she comes across as nervous or apprehensive. Role disjuncture is seemingly taking place (Goffman 1971).
Facework become an important component of Jensen and Deveny’s interactions. Denvey’s voice inflections change when she poses to Jensen ‘I'd like to see an arm grow back on or a head grow back on, you know. One of the things that always amazes...’ (Q&A 2012). Her tone has become sarcastic as opposed to the polite answering of Liz Hooper’s question and she is almost mocking him. In the screen shot of Jensen and Deveny discussing equality, hands go flying everywhere in an attempt to win the argument (Refer to Figure 3&4). The use of hands emphasises the attempt to maintain the integrity of each person’s argument and ultimately of their self-presentation (an extension of the role of facework (Goffman 1967)). An example of this occurs when Deveny interrupts (56:17) Jensen she raises her voice and says ‘I'm sorry but a white middle class man like you does have it. Try being disabled, try being an asylum seeker, try being gay, try being a woman, you’ll find it's not there’ (Q&A 2012) as Jensen tries to keep answering Deveny’s rebuttal she continues to talk over the top of her and shakes his head. Jensen is losing face in front of the audience and this had the potential to be emphasised when Deveny interjects for the last time and Jones cuts her off (refer to 56:31). In response Deveny in a sarcastic tone says ‘Yeah? [pause] I think he said plenty of words’ (Q&A 2012). There is no attempt on Deveny’s part to save Jensen’s face. In fact her blog stated that ‘I have never been so physically repelled by anyone as I have by Jensen. He is pure evil’ (Deveny 2012). It appears that she wanted to expose the chinks in his armor (Wheelan 2012). However, if we refer to Figure __ we see that Jensen does lose face and does not maintain expressive control at that point. Yet the rest of the clip provides evidence that he conducts impression management and expressive control despite being criticized by Deveny.
Figure 3
Figure 4
One could argue that the ‘rules of the game’ have been breached with Jensen and Deveny’s interaction – much like Garfinkel’s breaching experiments (Heritage 1984). Heritage also suggests that the rules of the game of an interview have public legitimacy and a ‘consensually understood as basic rules’ (1984, p79). It could also be argued that Wieder’s Code of Conduct – codes that exist but cannot be explicitly stated and must be understood from being immersed in the implications (not simply learned) (Wieder 1974). Some basic rules such as respecting the opinions of the other panelists could be understood as a consensual basic rule, yet when Deveny and Jensen interact the rules become unknown and the breaching of these rules can be noticed in the ‘oooooos’ of the studio audience (refer to 54:14 and 56:28) when Deveny interrupts Jensen. Then rules have been glazed over and the code of conduct breached.
Peter Jensen also embodies Goffman’s idea of presentation rituals (1971). Jensen is the Archbishop of the Sydney Anglican Diocese – he is at the top of his game in the Anglican church – yet he deliberately chose not to wear the traditional attire of a minister but a more casual tie (one that matched the Hosts’, Tony Jones). He also, according to Deveny (2012), requested to sit next to Deveny for the interview in full disclosure of who she was and how she puts forward her opinions. Each of these demonstrate the personal front that is presented as well as the presentation rituals that build the image of self and are reinforced by this (Goffman 1971). It is also useful to understand the context from which Jensen was on the show. That week he had released an opinion piece in the Sydney Morning Herald entitled ‘Men and women are different, and so should be their marriage vows’ (Jensen 2012). It addressed the changing of the wedding vows from ‘obey’ to ‘submit’ and spoke of the Bible’s idea of a woman and a man submitting to each other, equally, in marriage. It has caused much debate in the media (indeed there are 1004 comments on Sydney Morning Herald’s website naming Jensen ‘another dinosaur’ and Deveny in Q&A also previously calls him a dinosaur as well). There has to be a consistency of his self-presentation to the audience of Q&A as well as the audience of Australia because he had become to prominent in the public eye. In fact, his notions of submission in marriage are incredibly counter-cultural that the discourse has become opposite to what he stated which is why his statement created such a vocal outrage in public opinion – it opposed known discourses.
One of the micro-interactions that occur on Q&A is the relationship between the panellists and the host. The dynamics of facework also occur between Anna Krien and Tony Jones (54:22 – 54:31). The order of the interaction occurs in this way: (1) She laughs and looks down; (2) Pokes her toungue into the corner of her mouth; (3) Laughs again; (4) Looks up; (5) Looks down and pokes tongue into corner of her mouth again; (6) Jones attempts to save her face and continue the format of the setting through saying ‘It's a tough one. Start with the basic question: do you believe in God?’ (Q&A 2012). There’s an asymmetry between their positions because Jones is the Host and Krien is a panellist – Krien has the obligation of answering a question and Jones has the expectation that she will respond, just as Goffman predicts (1967). In a way, Jones creates the rules and the conduct by which she has to answer but if she does not answer then there is a mockery of the whole system and the whole fronstage collapses. In an attempt to save the face of Krien, himself and the television show. Face saving acts have become very important for this interaction.
The audience plays a very vital role in the setting Goffman refers to (1971). The setting of Goffman’s dramaturgy involves the physical nature of the room, furniture, spatial dimensions and decor (1971). For Q&A the setting goes beyond the physical layout of the panellists in a half circle facing the audience and breaches the conventional form of an interview as backchannels are permitted through the use of Twitter. The Twitter hashtag of #qanda allows the audience to interact through a stream of continual online banter – referred to as a backchannel by Harry et al. (2009). Goffman would refer to this as the backstage (1971). The audience plays a vital role in allowing presentation of selves to be validated or repudiated through this medium. Robinson (2007, p96) suggests that the image of the self is projected because it is credible to other users – performances need to be consistent to make sense to those other interactants and be ‘inseparable from the audience’s anticipated response’. Consequently, if this occurs in the mundane actions of everyday tasks then it is inevitably going to lead into online interactions that allow the collation of a self and the ritual of presenting oneself becomes increasingly important. The task of moving Q&A online to the audience consolidates the validity of the panellists’ ability to conduct frontstage performances and facework. The role of symbolic interactionism as the continual development of meaning, the self and the self in relation to others is recognised as part of this process (Robinson 2007; Egbert & Rosenberg 2011).
Due to the synchronic nature of online communication, Hogan (2010, p377) believes that the world goes beyond a stage and develops into a ‘participatory exhibit’. The behaviour setting moves beyond boundaries of a geographic location or room and also these new settings are no longer dependent upon interactants experience of them because they will continue to exist despite the individual (Hogan 2010). Traditionally, Goffman too states that a setting is usually static and is unchanging, however, the changing nature of mediated communication indicates that the boundaries have become blurred. This provides a new platform from which audience members interact with Q&A and the panellists. For example Deveny’s character became framed as vitriolic by the online world. Combined Tweets found her labelled as ‘an ugly, extremist, stupid, unintelligent, idiotic, thoughtless, self-righteous, self-centred, self-absorbed, nasty, confused, frustrated, bitter, twisted, humourless, un-funny, unreasonable, unrespectable, disrespectful, sarcastic, mocking, catty, hateful, boorish, blustering, bullying bitch’ (Stevenson 2012). Her role expectations clearly have not aligned with the obligations placed upon her by the audience. Ultimately rules and codes seem to change online. What is acceptable and worthy of face-saving acts on television shows how different the frontstage is to the backstage.
Micro-interactions occur in everyday circumstances and Goffman’s frontstage and the backstage highlight the nature of these rituals. Face-saving acts became increasingly important for the panellists, the host and the audience member but the contexts became blurred as the backchannels on Twitter and Blogs voiced presentation of the panellists and added to the holistic understanding of the presentation of each self on Q&A. Goffman, evidently, has done a brilliant job at pinpointing the small-scale behaviours and performances that individuals take up in order to create a line and present an identity.
REFERENCES
Deveny, C 2012, ‘Campbell Newman gets cops to heavy Deveny over Twitter comments’, Weblog post, Catherine Deveny, accessed 29/10/2012, http://www.catherinedeveny.com/columns/2012/9/14/campbell-newman-gets-cops-to-heavy-deveny-over-twitter-comme.html.
Jensen, P 2012, ‘Men and women are different, and so should be their marriage vows’, Sydney Morning Herald, 29 August 2012, accessed 8/10/2012, http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/men-and-women-are-different-and-so-should-be-their-marriage-vows-20120828-24yo6.html#ixzz2AurmOUAP.
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Q&A 2012, Seek and Ye Shall Submit, accessed 11/9/2012, http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s3581623.htm.
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Wheelan, A 2012, Presentation of the Self, lecture, SOC250, Everyday Interaction, University of Wollongong, delivered 22 August.
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