What are the elements of dramaturgy?

Erving Goffman developed the dramaturgical perspective in sociology. His work Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, published in 1956, marked the origin of the dramaturgical sociological perspective. 

Goffman applied dramaturg in analyzing, studying, and understanding social interactions in various social settings. He used dramaturgical terms to draw a parallel between drama and social setting. The elements of dramaturgy mentioned by Goffman are explained below:

• Actor or Interacting Individual
• Stage: Front Stage & Back Stage
• Audience in Social Setting
• Impression management
• Performance

Goffman explains how an interacting individual mirrors an actor taking on a role. He performs this role in a social setting with audiences. The front stage is where an actor delivers his performance, i.e., the social interaction between the individual and audience takes place in the front stage. The backstage represents a place where the actor or individual can be himself. Through impression management, the individual learns to appease the audience and what to say to impress the audience or other individual with which he is interacting. It is backstage where the techniques of impression management are perfected. A good performance is when an individual delivers a role as per the expectation of the audience. Goffman argued that the nature and content of interaction change as per the social setting or audience. This means that an individual plays various roles in tune with his audience's nature in a social setting. Goffman's symbolic explanation of the process of social interaction by deploying dramaturgical tools captures the contrast between the virtual social identity and actual social identity of individuals. During the interaction process, an individual presents a virtual social identity while masking the actual social identity.