AlterCasting

Activity
1.) Everyone gets a label that
states, “Hello, my name is...”
2.) Take the label and write a
name that you have been called
in the past. It can be positive,
negative, good, bad, etc.
 What are we going
to Pilcher
Daphne tell you
Felicia today?Singletar
Meyers
Samantha
Definition and
History Labeling Theory
Two Forms

A Prime
Nicholas Barnfield Kayla Steckler
Jobs and Media Use Example
Conclusio
n
Daphne
 Shakespeare

"All the world's a

stage,
And all the men and
women merely
players;
They have their exits
and their
 Erving
The Presentation of Self in Goffman
Everyday Life
6/11/22 – 11/19/82

In social interaction

front stage
“actors” in front of the
audiences

back stage
get rid of their “role” in
society.
 Dramaturgical
The term was first adapted into
sociology from the theatre

People are actors who must convey

their personal characteristics

It is constantly remade as the

person interacts with others

Social interaction is analyzed as

part of a theatrical performance
 Role Theory
Usually shaped by
individual's status in a particular society

 Gender: man, woman, mother, father

 Societal: based on the social

situations

 Genetic: come naturally to them:

athlete

 Cultural influence: cultures place

values
 In the 60’s

Some Dimensions of
Altercasting
EUGENE A. WEINSTEIN and
PAUL DEUTSCHBERGER
Sociometry
December 1963, Vol. 26,
No. 4

 people bring personal purposes

(MOTIVES) to interpersonal
communication

 pursuit of these purposes is the

“goal”
Felicia
 Altercasting
A strategy for persuading people by forcing
them in a social role, so that they will be
inclined to behave according to that role
 2 Forms of
Altercasting
Manded altercasting means that we ‘tell’
people who they are (or are supposed to be)
by making an existing role salient (‘You as a
Christian should….’), by placing others in a
particular role (‘You as a young ambitious
person should….’), by attributing a new
identity or role to someone, or by asking
people to play a role.
 2 Forms of
Altercasting
Tact altercasting means that we put
ourselves as senders in a role that ‘evokes’ a
natural counter-role for the other.
Samantha
Labeling Theory
 Deviance

Primary Deviance
Secondary Deviance
 Negative Altercasting
Positive Altercasting

Types of Altercasting
 Examples

“You should quit

drinking…”

“You should study because

you are smart.”

“You should stop smoking…”

“You should be an artist

“You should practice in because you draw
order to do well next well.”
game.”
Effects on Self
Nicholas
Negative Altercasting used in
Advertising
Positive Altercasting used in
Advertising
Positive Altercasting used in
Advertising
 Sources Used

Google Images

http://www.manrilla.net/academics/2008/11/24/the-se
Kayla
Example of Altercasting
The Breakfast Club
 Conclusion

the social role is a basic unit in people’s everyday condition.

presenting oneself in a social role that can be used to cast

the alter (tact altercasting) is relatively easy.

constructing roles that trap others in a course of action is

also relatively easy.

people often accept easily the social roles offered to them.

 • Labeling theory is concerned with how the self-identity and behavior of an
individual is influenced by how that individual is categorized and
described by others in the society.  The theory focuses on the linguistic
tendency of majorities to negatively label minorities or those seen as
deviant from norms, and is associated with the concept of a “self-fulfilling
prophecy” and “stereotyping“.

Labeling theory

Beginning in the 1950s with the work of people like Becker and Lemert (and continuing down to the present day in the pages of the
journal, Social Problems), the symbolic interactionist approach to deviance began to focus on the way in which negative labels get
applied and on the consequences of the labeling process. Edwin Lemert, for example, made a distinction between primary deviance
and secondary deviance. Primary deviance is rule-breaking behavior that is carried out by people who see themselves and are seen
by others as basically conformist. People break rules in all kinds of circumstances and for all kinds of reasons, such that Lemert
thought sociology can't possibly develop any general theories about primary deviance. But when a negative label gets applied so
publicly and so powerfully that it becomes part of that individual's identity, this is what Lemert calls secondary deviance. These
dramatic negative labelings become turning points in that individual's identity; henceforth s/he is apt "to employ his or her deviant
behavior or a role based upon it as a means of defense, attack, or adjustment to the problems created the subsequent societal
reaction." (Lemert) Having been processed by the juvenile justice system and labeled a delinquent, or harassed by the police as a gang
member, the individual takes on that label as a key aspect of his/her identity.
Labeling theorists have also been concerned to identity the conditions under which labeling takes place, whether as crime or mental
illness or homosexuality. Howard Becker began to analyze these conditions in his book, Outsiders, written in the 1950s. In Becker's
terminology, those who take the lead in getting a particular behavior negatively labeled (or in getting a negative label removed) are
called moral entrepreneurs. Moral entrepreneurs can be individuals (for example, Anthony Comstock, who in the 1860s waged an
almost single-handed campaign to get Congress to pass laws against pornography, including birth control); organizations (in Becker's
analysis of the origins of the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, it is officials of the Treasury Department and the FBI who are most responsible
for promoting legislation against mariujuana); or social movements (as with the battered women's movement, which changed both
laws and practices relating to the treatment of spousal violence).
Labeling theorists have also examined the consequences of labeling in terms of people's subsequent lives. At the extreme are those
who argue that a whole "deviant career" may well be the result of the misfortune of having been labeled. In other instances, as with
the Chambliss reading, "The Saints and the Roughnecks," inequities in the labeling process are highlighted but without claiming that
the label is the whole explanation of people's subsequent deviance.