Independent Research Project - Ablisa - SOC250:
Ablisa:
By Mitchell Neave, 4056449. Tute 1:30-3:30 Thursdays, Katie Freund.
When the social norms of a society
are breached by members of that society, it becomes apparent both why and where
the boundaries of social conduct are. Similar social boundaries are constructed
in small and large institutions and indeed in television shows. The audition by
the contestants ‘Ablisa’ on one such television show, the X Factor, presents an
interesting piece of data for analysing the power dynamics and violations of
social expectancies. The reception the contestants receive from both the judges
and the audience is atypical and the audition quickly descends into a chaotic
scene. Amongst the chaos there is
however evidence for numerous sociological concepts at work including
dramaturgy, sociocultural identity in talk, institutional talk, rudeness and
presentation of the self. This essay endeavours to link these key sociological
concepts with the interactions in the audition from the clip below.
The times considered in this exposition are 0:00 – 2:50 and 4:00 – 5:56. (4 minutes 46 seconds in total.)
The times considered in this exposition are 0:00 – 2:50 and 4:00 – 5:56. (4 minutes 46 seconds in total.)
The X Factor UK 2010:
The nature of this clip, being that
it is post-edit from a television show does present potential issues for my
treatment of the clip as raw ‘naturally-occurring data’. Whilst this clip is
clearly edited the breaching of the social norms during the audition which is ultimately
the primary focus of my analysis, is clearly naturally-occurring data. The clip
may have been edited to flow better for television however the tantrums and
attitudes of the contestants and in particular the on stage interactions in the
clip are clearly raw and not scripted or staged. Even this requirement for the
validation of the legitimacy of the clip demonstrates just how atypical the
behaviour of the contestants are and how clearly they breach the expectations
we have of people on television and as contestants as we attempt to attribute
their behaviour to merely the editing. There is enough raw data from this scene
to justify analysis and it is for these reasons this clip has been chosen.
The first half of the clip, prior
to the audition, involves an introduction of the contestants self-dubbed
‘Ablisa’. The name ‘Ablisa’ is simply an amalgamation of the individual’s names
Abby and Lisa. Their choice of name in conjunction with their accents both
contribute to the audience’s initial judgement of the contestants. These aspects
of interaction are part of their sociocultural identity. As explained by Donna
and Kerry (2011) nicknames have huge implications on the identity of the
individual. The naming of their contestant group reflects both their internal
perception and influence other’s perception of them. In this case the simplicity
of the name could imply some simplicity to the characters and a lack of
dedication and earnestness in their audition. The accents they share also
reflect a lower class background similarly influencing the audience’s perception.
Ablisa’s name and accents influence
the audience’s initial perception of the contestants, however it is the content
of what they are saying in the introduction that lead the audience to perceive
them negatively. In the introduction the things they say are atypical of
serious contestants and make them appear childish; “I’ve slept at her house the
whole week, how cool is that?” for instance. Goffman (1967) presents a concept
of the presentation of self which comprises of the various roles that make up
who we are. If we fulfil our expected roles in order to achieve social order
and others around us do the same. One of the ways in which Ablisa damage the
audience’s perception of them is through an inability to play the role of a
contestant. Unlike other contestants who have a heart-wrenching back story and
endeavour to demonstrate some musical know-how, Ablisa present incoherent
stories and make musically ill-informed comments such as ‘I think my voice is
like, higher than hers’. This comment demonstrates that they are not taking
their role as contestants seriously and is also an example of hedging, “like”
another aspect of their sociocultural identity present in their speech. The
inability to effectively play their roles as contestants in conjunction with
these aspects of interaction are part of what results in a negative audience
perception.
The world and indeed social order is nothing without perception. Charon
(2009) argues that it is one of the key principles in interaction that people
must not only sense the world around them but ‘define’ or perceive and
interpret it. It is the way in which we interpret the world around us that
informs our behaviour and helps us to understand where social boundaries are
and allows us to act in accordance with the expectations of our society. This
is a concept key to Goffman’s metaphor of Dramaturgy (Goffman, 1971). Dramaturgy
postulates that humans are merely actors on a stage. Interaction is about
conveying appropriate personas, acting, with use of relevant props and stage.
Dramaturgy is about impression management and presenting your self as you wish
to be seen. It has been shown to have practical applications in such areas as public
relations (Johansson, 2007) and consumer research (Schulz, 2012), allowing
people to be studied as actors. It is clear that Ablisa’s inability to
recognise the appropriate persona and to act in accordance with the audience’s
expectations that contribute to their negative reception.
Goffman (1971) differentiates between front and back stage personas,
clearly Ablisa cannot. A front stage persona is the persona you present in
front of other people and particularly when in the spotlight. In an endeavour
to effectively ‘impression manage’ one must act in accordance with social
boundaries and present positively. Back stage personas are more relaxed and
occur when you think you are by yourself, less impression management is necessary
as there is no-one to judge you upon your behaviours. Immediately following
their onstage greetings, Ablisa squeal ‘Oh my god it’s Cheryl’ clearly
inappropriate for the setting. They continue to communicate with the judges in
a manner that is extremely informal with a lack of respect and humility. They
treat the judges as if they are just friends at a party in a less formal, more
backstage setting. This inability to present an appropriate front stage persona
demonstrates a lack of respect for the show, the audiences and the judges. The
judges in particular are expected to be shown respect as logically one wants to
effectively impression manage and have the judges think well of you. This is
however another social expectation that is broken by Ablisa.
The audience’s reaction to the contestant’s
actions can further be justified through Blumer’s (1969) first premise of
symbolic interactionism, that human’s act toward things on the basis of the
meanings they ascribe to those things. Ablisa have little or no respect for the
judges or audience as confessed bluntly after their performance that ‘at the
end of the day we don’t really care what you think’. This lack of respect is
clearly shown not only through their exchanges with the judges, but also
through their stage presence, which involves them facing each other and away
from the audience, the demand for the music to begin quicker and perhaps most
significantly, through telling the audience to “shut up”. This lack of respect
is reciprocated by the audience who respond with loud booing during the
performance and whilst they’re on stage. This is because the meaning they’ve
ascribed to these contestants is disrespect and so they act in accordance.
Another key sociological concept at
play in this clip is that of face work also suggested by Goffman. Face could be
defined as one’s own need to be accepted within a society or social dignity. A
loss of face occurs when an event damages or threatens your autonomy and causes
you to appear to lose this acceptance and dignity. Similarly social death is an
event which completely tarnishes your concept of face. Once the contestants are on stage their
inability to recognise front and backstage persona’s leads to Ablisa saying
things that again break the expectancies of our society and their role as
contestants. As Brown and Levinson (1987) suggests, face work largely accounts
for our reason for politeness, two concepts Ablisa display minimal acknowledgement
of. Initially they threaten one of the judges faces, Louis Walsh by commenting
on their contrasting perceptions of his ‘fitness’ or attractiveness. Not only
is this disrespectful and inappropriate for the front stage persona, it damages
and threatens the judge’s face. Fellow judge Simon Cowell negates Louis’s
attempt to respond and as the girls continue to answer the judge’s questions,
the audience begins to boo. This threatens Ablisa and causes a loss of face
which leads the girls to lash out at the audience. From there the scene descends
from the unappreciated performance into Abby hitting Lisa in frustration for
her disrespectful comments towards ‘one of the star judges’ Natalie Imbruglia.
Again the reason for this vented frustration is a perceived loss of face from
the inappropriateness of the behaviour compounded by further rude gestures at the
audience and judges. As Ablisa’s face is threatened the girls act more
inappropriately and out of frustration which add to the negative reception from
the judges and audience.
As in every institution there is an
expected schema for which interaction should follow, as previously demonstrated
Ablisa have clearly broken these rules for the show the X Factor. As detailed
by Lelićanin and Šuvaković (2011), interaction generally follows a
simple procedure such as opening, denoting the problem, solving and closing
with a clear turn taking organisation. In this instance it can be adapted to be
opening and questioning of the contestant, performing and closing. The
performance answers the questions of the opening and the closing about whether
they will be good enough to progress in the competition. Ablisa disrupt the
asymmetrical power balance between the judges (who should have power) and the
contestant (Ablisa who take control by generally being overbearing). The
interaction does not follow the typical judges/contestant interacting procedure
and thus again breaks the social expectations. After Natalie’s feedback is
received Lisa begs the question ‘Sorry, but who are you?’ resulting in uproar
from the crowd and eventuating into the physically abusive second tantrum
between the contestants. Despite Lisa defending herself backstage suggesting
she simply didn’t who the judge was in this context the question was another display
of an absence of understanding of front and back stage personas and appropriate
observations of institutional norms and power dynamic interactions.
There are numerous errors in
standardised interaction that contribute to this audition descending into
complete chaos. A combination of an inability to recognise front and back stage
personas, inappropriate talk within an institution as well as sociocultural and
identity all lead to a negative reception from the audience and judges towards
these contestants. This negative reception results in a social death and a loss
of face creating further anarchy as the contestants turn on each other. Whilst
it is difficult to justify giving Ablisa further attention let alone warranting
analysis it is in situations such as these that sociological constructs and rules
are most evident. When social norms and rules comprising of what seems like
basic common sense appear to be broken through the behaviour of the contestants
it is clear to see why there is a universally negative reception for these two
girls.
By
Mitchell Neave.
References:
Benwell, B. & Stokoe, E. (2002) Constructing discussion
tasks in university tutorials:
shifting
dynamics and identities. Discourse Studies, 4(4), 429-453.
Brown, P. & Levinson, S. C. (1987)
Politeness: some universals in language usage. Social Anthropology, 8.
Charon,
J. M. (2009). Symbolic Interactionism: An Introduction, an Interpretation, an
Integration. Northwestern University: Prentice Hall.
Lelićanin, M. K. & Šuvaković, A.
(2011) Linguistic aspects in asymmetrical institutional interaction – Call center
case, http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/0350-0861/2011/0350-08611102191K.pdf.
Blumer, H. (1969) Symbolic
Interactionism: perspective and method. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.
301/50
Starks, D.,
Taylor-Leech, K. (2011) A research project on nicknames and adolescent
identities. New Zealand Studies in Applied Linguistics, 17(2), 87-97.
Johansson,
C. (2007) Goffman's sociology: An inspiring resource for developing public
relations theory. Public Relations Review, 33(3), 275-280.
Goffman, E. (1967) The nature of deference and demeanour in
Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior, Doubleday, Garden
City, NY, 47-95.
Goffman, E. (1971) Performances.The
Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.
Harmondsworth:
Penguin, 28-82.
Schulz,
H. M. (2012) Exploring dramaturgy in consumer research. Journal of Research for Consumers, 21, 1-19.
By Mitchell Neave, 4056449.
posted by Mitch SOC250 @ 20:46
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