Week 10: Goffman, Electronic Identities

C&S: Gergen 182-188, Waskul 200-209; C&S: Wolkomir & Powers 219-232

              

               Online we use many of Goffman’s theorized techniques to give off a certain impression of who we are. Whether it’s on a social dating site like OK Cupid or a social networking site, we use certain words and specific pictures to manage our identity online. We can construct many ‘selves’ online, but in order for them to be successful, they must align with prior knowledge that others have of us (for those that know us from elsewhere too). There have been several occasions where my friends have made up new people online on Facebook and have requested to be my friend. They retrieve a picture from elsewhere, make up a name, and make up information about this ‘person,’ including likes and dislikes. Many people fell for this scam and believed it was a new girl at the school, when in reality it was a guy who made a second Facebook profile just to mess with people. Another friend of mine temporarily switched his online identity by changing his name, photo, and information to match up with a Muppets character. Everyone knew it wasn’t actually a Muppet that we were friends with, but he did a good enough job covering up his own information and giving off the Muppet’s identity that it took a really long time for others to figure it out.

I, too, have done things to alter my cyberself and self-presentation. My friend and I once traded profile pictures and changed our names to match that of the other person. For twelve hours or so, I was no longer myself online and instead I was my friend. It was interesting to see how our other friends responded to this—they actually believed I was my friend. They would tag us in photos (as the other person), messaged us thinking we were who we said we were, and continued to respond and interact with us in ways that only helped to construct who we were online as the other person.

This website called My Fake Wall (http://myfakewall.com/) allows you to create fake profiles and make up a person. It uses pictures and names to construct a different online identity or person.

Week 9: Symbolic Interaction, Identity, Goffman

C&S: Cooley 151-155, Mead 156-160; C&S:  Stretesky & Pogrebin 173-181, Adler & Adler 210-218; C&S: Goffman 191-199

Who are you? Who am I? These are things that everyone considers and tries to figure out as they grow up and go through life. But Mead, Cooley, and Goffman developed several theories on how we figure that out. Mead talks about the generalized other and how, through stages of interaction, we learn who we are in comparison to others. According to Cooley, our sense of self and identity is developed through interacting with others and judging how they see us and applying and taking on that self that we imagine others see us as- this is called the looking glass self. We judge how others see us by responding to their reactions of us to help form who we think we are. Goffman theorizes that the self is created strictly though specific interactions and performing different selves. We try to display a certain self and give off a specific identity through identity management in this dramaturgical theory. In identity theft scams, such as the one found on http://www.bclocalnews.com/news/133770963.html, people try to give off the impression that they are a specific person in order for their own gain. The person in this article behaved like the lady’s granddaughter and did what she could to essentially be her over the phone in order to get money from the grandmother. This front-stage interaction wasn’t entirely successful because the grandmother was suspicious and refused to send money, but the grandmother did nearly believe it was her granddaughter on the phone because they sounded very similar.

Week 8: Religion and Social Construction

I am Christian and attend church services once or twice a week, every week. My experiences are not quite like those of The Church of Jesus with Signs Following. There is more structure to my services and less randomness. They also coincide more with social norms—there is no snake handling and people don’t speak up or out in the same ways. People do get up and dance, raise their hands, sit and pray, and do what they want during the time periods when music is being played. People pray with each other and for one another, and at different points in time I have felt different things. When listening to songs, praying, listening to the sermon, or being prayed for, I have had overwhelming feelings of joy, sadness, excitement, or sudden understanding. I can also relate to the feelings described in the book, particularly when Covington describes the feelings in the room when Aline was praying and praising, repeating “Akiii” (78). When listening to others pray or praying myself, I have had those feelings of “great pain, loss,” desperation, “A panting after something she could not quite reach. And then it would be a coming to rest in some exquisite space” and of being “transfixed.”

Emile Durkheim discusses religion and its importance in society. My church and campus ministry have given me a place and a sense of belonging. I love communing and talking with people who believe the same things I do and growing and learning from them; Durkheim calls this collective consciousness. The cross could be considered our totem or sacred image. The feelings I described in my experience would be described as effervescence to Durkheim. Durkheim would associate those ‘heightened feelings’ as coming from being in the group.

Week 7: Deviance, Mass/Collective behavior, Religion and Rational Choice

BB: Chambliss; C&S: Lifton 437-445; BB: Spickard

The world is socially constructed and ‘if people define situations as real, they are real in their consequences’ (The Saints and the Roughnecks). Lifton discusses Nazi Doctors at Auschwitz and the processes and socialization they underwent in order to function in Nazi extermination camps, which were socially constructed realities. Chambliss compares two youth gangs and their actions and how they were perceived by the community to show that there were consequences to perceiving the Roughnecks as more deviant than the Saints.

Nazi Germany was a reality shaped by Hitler and those in authority, blaming Jews and other unaccepted groups for the economic and social distress of the time. This ‘reality’ was socially constructed. It wasn’t the Jews’ fault, but reasons were supplied to go with the blame and in despair and desperation, the community was willing to accept the explanation and go along with the solution: wipe them out. As a result, the situation was defined as real and had real consequences. The doctors who participated in the extermination and killing of people were socialized into this society. They were socialized into believing that this was the solution to the overall problem, and even though it was bad, it was better than letting the situation prevail. They did what Lifton calls ‘doubling’ in that they developed two selves in order to cope with the horrible job that they had. There was the self that did the exterminating and the kind self that did nice things to those who were at the camp and were alive. They also justified their jobs as necessary and defined themselves as generally good people who just had dirty jobs.

Chambliss’ two groups, the Roughnecks and the Saints did a similar amount of delinquent acts, but because the public perceived them as different, the consequences for the Roughnecks and Saints were different. The Saints actually did more, but the public saw them as overall good boys who were involved in school and just having a little fun. They were rarely pulled over by policemen and often let off. Teachers gave them good grades because they were perceived as good students. For the Roughnecks, they were seen and treated just the opposite. They often got into trouble with the police and had a lower grade point average. The public thought they were bigger trouble makers because they didn’t dress as well and got into more fights, though they actually didn’t miss class as much as the Saints or take part in as many delinquent acts. There were real consequences to the way the public thought reality was.

In my life, there are real consequences to the way I perceive others and to the way I perceive myself. If I see myself as a bad person, useless, inadequate, and incapable of doing what I need to do, I usually am less productive on those days and have a sour mood. That mood and attitude can then cause me to be less polite and sometimes mean to others, thus causing me to be the bad, lazy, unproductive person that I perceive myself as. However, I am more productive when I feel like I am capable of accomplishing things. Similarly, when others believe I am a good and responsible person, their encouragement helps me to get things done and to do them well. They also then trust me with more things to do, and the more I have to do the more I get done, and thus the more productive and responsible I appear.