Abstract
This study aims to revisit and rethink Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical theory in light of the transformations of contemporary celebrity culture, examining how the logic of performance has evolved in the age of media. Employing a descriptive–analytical approach grounded in theoretical comparison, the research proceeds in three stages: first, it explicates and analyzes Goffman’s core concepts, including stage, role, role distance, impression management, stigma, and self. Second, it examines the structural features of celebrity culture—such as representability, mediatization, performative identity, audience orientation, reflexive surveillance, and the erosion of meaning. Third, by mapping these two performative logics onto each other, it reveals how Goffman’s concepts have been transformed within the context of contemporary celebrity culture. The findings indicate that in today’s media-driven and algorithmic environment, individual identity has become a performative and consumable project, and even notions such as stigma have acquired a reversed function. The study’s novelty lies in the conceptual formulation of what is termed survival performance—a notion that, moving beyond Goffman’s purely interactionist framework, analyzes the interplay of power, media, and agency in an era of compulsory visibility, thereby opening a new horizon for the analysis of contemporary celebrity culture.