Frame Analysis: Erving Goffman and the Sociocognitive Organization of Experience

This paper revisits Erving Goffman's Frame Analysis fifty years after its publication. The paper first situates this book within the context of its intellectual precursors, namely Georg Simmel's 1917 essay “Sociability,” Alfred Schutz's 1945 article “On Multiple Realities,” and Gregory Bateson's 1955 paper “A Theory of Play and Fantasy.” It then examines the book's three main themes, namely framing, keying, and disattention.