Summary Of Irving Goffman's Dramaturgical Approach

Irving Goffman’s dramaturgical approach to the Interactionist perspective states that there are two sides to every situation and every one’s life. In other words, he insists that there is the front and center “performance” that we put on that the whole world sees, and there is the “behind the scenes” work that has gone into making the performance what it is. The key aspect of this approach, at least in my opinion, to keep in mind is that others interpret your “stages” and you interpret other peoples. This means that to one person (or even yourself), you are doing all of the “behind the scenes” work; however, to someone who has not been observing all the work leading up to that moment, they likely see you as being on the “front stage” (Kauzlarich, …show more content…
Under his “power elite” theory, he is essentially stating that only a (relative) few individuals within the political, military, and corporate realms of the United States actually hold enough power to change the lives of everyday individuals. In Mills’ book, he clarifies this theory by stating that these individuals hold most of the nation’s wealth and wield control over the education system, media, and government. The final major clarification that Mill provides is that these positions are highly fluid, but only between members of this group (Kauzlarich, 2005). Now, I do not buy into the thought that regular individuals cannot change the lives of other regular citizens; however, it would be extremely difficult dispute his claim about those positions wielding power and being able to fluidly move between positions given the forty-fifth and current President of the United States- Donald Trump a corporate leader a former reality television star, crossing three of the main groups that are the “Power Elite” focuses