Final answer:
Erving Goffman's basic unit of analysis was the encounter or interaction, not the individual. His dramaturgical analysis uses theater as a metaphor for social interactions, emphasizing role-playing and improvisation. Symbolic interactionism focuses on micro-level, face-to-face interactions to understand society.
Step-by-step explanation:
To Erving Goffman, as a symbolic interactionist, a focus on individual actors did obscure important facts about interaction. Goffman's basic unit of analysis was thus not the individual but the encounter or the interaction itself. Goffman used dramaturgical analysis, drawing an analogy between social interactions and theater, where people perform roles in cultural "scripts." This analysis highlights the need for improvisation by individuals as they navigate through different social scenarios, constantly switching roles akin to actors in a play.Symbolic interactionism is a micro-level theory that places importance on the relationships among individuals within a society and suggests that the social reality is constructed through the exchange of meaning through language and symbols. This lens is used to scrutinize how society is composed of people communicating based on a shared understanding of symbols and the microanalytical view of day-to-day interactions.Sociologists working from the symbolic interaction perspective are less concerned with large structures, such as government and more with the face-to-face interactions that make up the social world. Politics, from this standpoint, are shaped through interaction, where backroom meetings and lobbyist efforts often play a more significant role than the sanitized public image presented by the media.