Persona

This article is about the concept. For other uses, see Persona (disambiguation).

A persona (plural personae or personas) is a strategic mask of identity in public,[1] the public image of one's personality, the social role that one adopts, or simply a fictional character.[2] It is also considered "an intermediary between the individual and the institution."[3]

Persona studies is an academic field developed by communication and media scholars.[4] The term “persona” has been discussed by sociologists Robert Park[5] and Erving Goffman[6] in the 1950s. It is a tool to become persons by constructing the conception of our role and connecting the inner conception to the outer world as individuals.[7] Yet, the terminology of identity and personae has been applied loosely and both imply the impressions of self and social performances in their works.

The word derives from Latin, where it originally referred to a theatrical mask.[8] The usage of the word dates back to the beginnings of Latin civilization.[9] The Latin word derived from the Etruscan word "phersu," with the same meaning, and that from the Greek πρόσωπον (prosōpon).[10] It is the etymology of the word "person," or "parson" in French.[11] Latin etymologists explain that persona comes from "per/sonare" as "the mask through which (per) resounds the voice (of the actor)."[12]

Its meaning in the latter Roman period changed to indicate a "character" of a theatrical performance or court of law,[13] when it became apparent that different individuals could assume the same role and that legal attributes such as rights, powers, and duties followed the role. The same individuals as actors could play different roles, each with its own legal attributes, sometimes even in the same court appearance.

  1. ^ Marshall, P. David; Barbour, Kim (2015-04-30). "Making Intellectual Room for Persona Studies: A New Consciousness and a Shifted Perspective". Persona Studies. 1 (1). doi:10.21153/ps2015vol1no1art464. hdl:10536/DRO/DU:30072974. ISSN 2205-5258.
  2. ^ "Persona", Merriam-Webster.com, Merriam-Webster, Inc., 2020.
  3. ^ Bosch, Mineke (January 2013). "Persona and the Performance of Identity Parallel Developments in the Biographical Historiography of Science and Gender, and the Related Uses of Self Narrative". L'Homme. 24 (2). doi:10.7767/lhomme.2013.24.2.11. ISSN 2194-5071. S2CID 148183584. Archived from the original on 2018-07-02. Retrieved 2023-05-01.
  4. ^ "Persona Studies". ojs.deakin.edu.au. Retrieved 2023-04-23.
  5. ^ Park, Robert (1950). Race and Culture. Free Press.
  6. ^ Goffman, Erving (1956). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. University of Edinburgh.
  7. ^ Goffman, Erving (1956). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. University of Edinburgh. pp. 152, 160.
  8. ^ Bishop, Paul (July 30, 2007). Analytical Psychology and German Classical Aesthetics: Goethe, Schiller, and Jung, Volume 1: The Development of the Personality. Taylor & Francis. pp. 157–158. ISBN 978-0-203-96088-2. Retrieved August 27, 2013.
  9. ^ The Category of the person : anthropology, philosophy, history. Michael Carrithers, Steven Collins, Steven Lukes. Cambridge [Cambridgeshire]: Cambridge University Press. 1985. ISBN 0-521-25909-6. OCLC 11523564.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  10. ^ "The Etruscan Phersu - phersuminiatures". sites.google.com. Retrieved 2023-05-01.
  11. ^ "Person, n." Oxford English Dictionary. 2023.
  12. ^ Mouss, Marcel (1985). Category of the Person. Cambridge University Press. p. 14.
  13. ^ Horsman, Yasco; Korsten, Frans-Willem (2016-09-01). "Introduction: Legal Bodies: Corpus/Persona/Communitas". Law & Literature. 28 (3): 277–285. doi:10.1080/1535685X.2016.1232924. ISSN 1535-685X.