Erving Goffman as a theorist of the mass media

The work of Erving Goffman has been influential in media studies, primarily via adaptations of selected concepts like "region" and "frame." However, relatively little attention has been paid by media researchers to Goffman's own theoretical work on the mass media. Taking its lead from the later work of Goffman, this essay shows how it contains elements of a theoretical framework for mass-mediated communication, through the concepts of "hyper-ritualization" and "dramatic scriptings." I emphasize the way that Goffman situates mass communication in relation to the interpersonal realm as a model version of the latter, as mass communication is crafted, concentrated, and planned to a degree that interpersonal communication is not. I conclude that Goffman's critical approach to informality in broadcast talk and interaction is a valuable tool for the researcher in a time when the rhetoric of informality has become a dominant mode of legitimation in broadcasting.