slicing reality

"Goffman begins by dividing the world into an empirical part - a 'strip' - which he defines as 'any arbitrary slice or cut from the stream of ongoing activity' (p. 10), and a subjective part - a 'frame' - which he defines as the 'principles of organization which govern events - at least social ones - and our subjective involvement in them' (p. 10-11). . . . We 'frame' 'strips' of activity by seeing them as

• natural "(unguided events") or social ("guided doings") - the two fundamental frames; or as
• fantasied or faked - two of the man instances of secondary frames Goffman discusses.

"The cellular aspect of frame analysis involved describing the membrane around an activity - the spatial and temporal brackets of each particular frame...[and] also involves distinguishing the nucleus of an activity from its surrounding cytoplasm - the inner official events ... from the outer ... occasion.

"The concentric (onion skin) aspect of frame analysis involves discriminating the various levels or "laminations" that frame a strip of activity and specifying the ways natural and social frames (basic) are transformed into other, less fundamental frames.