All the world's a stage
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All the world's a stage -
using drama theory to resolve confrontations Jim Bryant polarises, trivialises or quantifies complex human
Draina Theory is a general theory of human interaction which uses the metaphor of drama to illuminate how situations develop through the deliberate choices ¡nade by participants. This article sets out the key concepts of the theory and presents the core technique of confrontation analijsis. Through examples it shows the dilemmas posed by rational choice behaviour, and discusses their resolution. A mmumber of short case examples are provided to encourage the mamma gemnemit scientist to adopt drama theory as an analytical approach.
experience.
Confrontation analysis Drama theory is relevant to those cases when people
see themselves involved with others in change processes. Usually the various participants will have different aspirations, intentions, methods and opportunities. These factors define the elemental interaction, termed a confrontation or moment of
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truth in drama theory. Formally a confrontation can be described as a set of perceived futures: one corresponding to the position of each character; plus the
Drama theory sometimes is referred to as 'soft game
threatened future which will occur if each carries out its faliback action. These and related terms can
theory' (Howard, 1990). This clearly shows its antecedents, but sells short its potential. As an extension of game theory it offers a conceptual
be expressed more fully as follows:
framework containing elements that will already be familiar to the management scientist. However, its extension of game theory is not so much incremental
Characters:
those who are involved in a situation
Cast:
the set of characters
1995), human-computer communication (Bryant and Howard, 1995), management training (Bryant, 1997) and counselling. While a whiff of these applications will be indicated in this article, the primary aim here is to explain the basic principles.
Actions:
opportunities, which are available
Alternatives:
for each action, what is implied by a character not selecting that action
Drama theory uses the metaphor of drama to make sense of human interaction. The drama metaphor
Future:
a meaningful selection of actions
situations and anticipate interacting with others. lt
Position:
the future a character would have
experience interaction as moving through a succession of episodes - as in the storyboard for a film or theatre performance - and second by drawing on the
Fallback:
the set of actions a character threatens, if its position seems thwarted
as disjoint and radical. A corollary is that drama theory has already shown its relevance for such diverse field s as international relations (Bennett,
to a character, to affect the situation
across characters
draws attention to the way in which people read
does so, first by proposing that we subjectively
parallel of drama to model and interpret the fine structure of these episodes. Drama - and so drama
Default future: the future which will occ
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