Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience

Rating:
Summary: An extraordinary tool for analyzing social interaction
Review: Goffman takes what could have been a very dry subject, and infuses it with a humor that makes the book a pleasure to read (of course, he was tenured when he wrote it, so he could afford the sense of humor). The controlling idea of the book is that anytime human beings experience anything, we "frame" the experience in one of two categories of ways. The first category of frame is the natural frame, which is sort of "automatic." Those frames are not easily changed or shifted. The second category of frame is the social frame, which includes all kinds of subcategories. In short, social frames result from our past experiences, predispostions, etc. Much of the book is given to taxonimizing the different social frames. Other issues that arise are: How do we process experience when there are competing frames? Who gets to control the frame of experience, the speaker or the listener? Both? Neither? This book is full of heady philosphical musings, but within those parameters, it's remarkably reader-friendly.

Rating:
Summary: Incisive, insightful, and hilarious
Review: Goffman's book is primarily about how people understand the situations they find themselves; in his own words, the ways people face the question "What is it that is is going on here now?" Roughly, answering questions like this is what he calls "framing", and the answers "frames".

The way this topic is developed, however, is by an amazingly detailed discussion of example of incidents where people dramatically misunderstand the situations they find themselves in, either by mistake, or because they are induced into doing it by others who set out to con or fool them. One of the most fun things about this book is the sources of the examples. The most memorable are news clippings apt to be filed under "Odd News", with tales about con men, college activists, the royal family and such, which were obviously thrown into the paper for comic relief, and make the book enormous fun to grab and skim through just for the stories. Goffman's introduction goes as far to label his selection methodology, literally, as a mockery of representative sampling.

But there's a method here. The stories were newsworthy precisely because they were extraordinary ocurrences; and Goffman's approach is to iluminate normality by examining situations that depart dramatically from it. He develops a series of very technical concepts to analyse at great depth what's going on in these situations, the central ones being "frame", "keying", "fabrication". He applies these concepts to drama, conversation and deception, among other things.

The funniest thing about this book, however, is the contrast between Goffman's serious, academic tone and the silliness of a lot of the material he's covering. A contrast which one can tell he played up.

Rating:
Summary: The fastest way to an insane asylum
Review: This book drove me crazy. It is a dry sociological look at how we "frame" situations we are in. It is repetitive and a kind of like a verbal calculus problem that never ends. I recommend a weekly therapy session while reading this book!!!