Goffman and social networking

Whilst at AERA, I heard that the proposal for the BERA symposium on 'Literacy in Virtual Worlds' we submitted back in January has been accepted, which is great. My paper is titled 'Countering chaos in Club Penguin: Young children’s use of literacy practices in the establishment of a virtual ‘interaction order’' which, as the title suggests, draws on Goffman's work. I first became interested in Goffman when a PhD student I supervised, Rosemary Anderson, drew on his theories to explore how children with reading difficulties managed their identities in the classroom and so I began to read his work in more depth. The more I read of it, the more I felt it helped me to understand young children's enagagement in digital literacies a little more. Of course I am not alone here - a growing number of people are interested in Goffman's ideas in relation to social networking - see here, for example. I know that some feel his ideas are perhaps not fluid enough to manage poststructuralist conceptions of identity - Guy, for example, has said he prefers the work of Holstein and Gubrium in this respect - but I feel that it is possible to read Goffman through a postructuralist lens. In the meantime, I recommend Rosemary's UKLA minibook based on her work - no Goffman in there, but plenty of good strategies for teachers!