Faceworkin

Faceworkin is a term used in communication studies to describe the practice and study of constructing, maintaining, and negotiating social face across both face-to-face and mediated interactions. Grounded in the concept of facework developed by Erving Goffman, faceworkin emphasizes the ongoing, practical efforts people undertake to present themselves in ways that align with social expectations and to recover from missteps when those expectations are violated. The term foregrounds the workflows that shape impression management, including choice of language, nonverbal cues, turn-taking, and platform-enabled features that influence how messages are received.

Digital environments have expanded the domain of faceworkin to include video calls, messaging apps, social media, and automated moderation. In these contexts, faceworkin encompasses politeness strategies, tone calibration, audience awareness, and repair routines after face-threatening acts, as well as design considerations for interfaces that support respectful communication, such as feedback signals, visibility controls, and clear etiquette norms.

Scholars study faceworkin to understand everyday communication, organizational discourse, and online community management. Methodologies include discourse analysis, conversational analysis, and experimental studies of how different cues affect perceived face preservation. Applications include workplace training on intercultural communication, consumer-facing customer service, online moderation, and the design of collaborative platforms that reduce face-threatening dynamics.

See also: facework, impression management, politeness theory, computer-mediated communication, human-computer interaction.