His fundamental contribution is how he slants his premise that we present a front in all our behavior before others.
. Most institutions have a "front stage" where workers focus on the impression they make upon the public, and a "back stage" or back office where they can interact freely in order to get their work done expeditiously.
Eliminating the distinction between front stage and back stage not only degrads the workers' performance but causes intense distress--yet that is exactly the situation on most Internet forums. Very rarely can people collaborating or sharing information on a public forum pull aside into a private space.
I just finished Erving Goffman's classic sociological text, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. A friend told me to read this for an exploration into what "identity" means online, and I did find that the book offers some useful frameworks.
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