Title of the course:

Communicating in public: stigma and stereotype

Communicating the identity implies sophisticated representative
strategies, especially when social actors interact "in prasentia". In
particular, Goffman describes the communicative impact begot by the
presence of stigma. The term stigma and its synonymous offer a double
perspective: does the stigmatized subject assume that his own diversity
might be already known and visually evident? Or does he believe that it
might be neither known by observers, nor perceptible? In the first
instance the individual deals with the destiny of the discredited, in the
second, he copes with the fate of the discreditable. As a matter of fact,
the stigma is a particular relationship between the attribute and the
stereotype (even though some important attributes may engender forms
of discredit in our society).
Information is reflected and embodied by the subject, as well as the sign
through which it is relayed. This is why information are transmitted just
by the individual and by means of a corporeal expression, in the
immediate presence of those who receive that message. Hence follows
the strategic role that the dialectic between backstage and proscenium
has in Goffman’s sociology, aimed to describe the interactional dynamics
of daily life - conceived as a representation.