Aplying Goffman’s frame analysis to online fora

An interesting thought about applying Goffman to online phenomena. A student of mine, Christina Kalinowski, wrote an excellent master thesis on the same topic. Will follow up with more soon.

Let me start by shining a light on an odd phenomenon we've all experienced online. Lots of people on mailing lists, forums, and social networks react with great alarm when they witness heated arguments. This reaction, in my opinion, stems from an ingrained defense mechanism whose intensity verges on the physiological. We've all learned, from our first forays to the playground as children, that rough words easily escalate to blows. So we react to these words in ways to protect ourselves and others.

Rationally, this defense mechanism wouldn't justify intervening in an online argument. The people arguing could well be on separate continents, and have close to zero chance of approaching each other for battle before they cool down.

When asked why forum participants insert themselves between the fighters–just as they would in a real-life brawl–they usually say, “It's because I'm afraid of allowing a precedent to be set on this forum; I might be attacked the same way.” But this still begs the question of what's wrong with an online argument. No forum member is likely to be a victim of violence.

Erving Goffman Image via Wikipedia

We can apply Goffman's frame analysis to explain the forum members' distress. It's what he calls a keying: we automatically apply the lessons of real-life experiences to artificial ones. Keying allows us to invest artificial circumstances–plays, ceremonies, court appearances, you name it–with added meaning.

via More that sociologist Erving Goffman could tell us about social networking and Internet identity – O’Reilly Radar.

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