Post Numero Uno: Presentation of the Self

So, this weeks tute/last weeks lecture was on the presentation of self. In other words the self in a social context and how we present ourselves. In order to discuss this though, I should first describe the Social Scene, seeing as this is where the Social Interactions happen. Goffman (I think it was him, I'm working off my lecture notes) put forward these aspects of what makes a social scene:

• Co-presence: Having more tha one preson in a scene (not alot of interacting if your on your own...unless you have dissociative identity disorder...then there might be, though I doubt it)
• A single focus of attention: Everyone within a scene attending to the same thing, though he does allow for unfocused attention as well (I'm not too sure of this one, I feel like in the one 'scene' you could have people a bunch of different focuses going on, like, people sitting around having their own conversations, does that count as one scene, or a bunch of small scenes?)
• A single definition of the scene/situation: everyone having the same understanding of the social and moral aspects of the scene (it also says psychological...but aside from us psych students and stuff does anyone consider the psychological goings on in a scene? I mean...I am a psych student and even I don't...)

(I just realised I'm over 250 words...so I'd better get on with it)

Perhaps one of the biggest aspects of the self is the Face (no not the thing on your head, though thats important too). Face can bee seen as our Social Dignity, it can be thought of as an image of the self which is created through social interactions (though I think Social Dignity explains it better than that). It should also be noted that Lin Yutang (1935) though stated that "Face cannot be translated or defined" (which I like, because it means I don't have to try).

Because I'm now way over the 250 words I'm going to finish up with a quick example of facework, or something which I think fits anyway...mostly because it was brought up in the tute. At a party the other week (I'm being deliberately vague) while talking with a friend they accidently spat on my face (by the way, I'm not ripping this off compltely from the tute, it actually happaned). Seeing as it was a friend, I made an exaggeration of wiping my face. Had it been a stranger, or some one of a higher social status than me though, the way to make sure they didn't lose face (dignity, see, I can interchange them) would have been to do so subtly rather than drawing attention to the fact and possibly embarass them.

So, 457 words later, that is the end of my 250 word blog post...which is now 473 words (according to the counting tool I'm using...woops, 482).

Lin Yutang. (1935). My Country and My People. Reynal & Hitchcock.