In digital terms, Genette defined the paratext as ''those liminal devices which wrap or accompany the text in order to make it both present and presentable – from titles to tables of content and from footnotes to notebooks.''
Put simply, it means that a story or a literacy work is open for development, it keeps on going through a majority of mediums. It could start as a book or a game, it will develop into morph into new things such as fan fictions or spin off's Depending on the context and the background, it can sometimes blur the lines of reality, in that it becomes unclear to the audience what is real and what is fake. This can also alter the meaning or reading of a certain text, as Genette argues that paratexts take a text and 'surround it and extend it'.
For example, when a new film is released, it starts with teaser posters and teaser snippets/mini trailers before the actual trailer is released. When it is, there are often billboards and commercials on and off TV advertising the release of the film. The film would have a website, a Facebook page, a Twitter account before it's even released. When it is, the characters from the film may have a Parody twitter account or Facebook page, such as 'Fat Amy' from the recent film 'Pitch Perfect'. This does blur the lines of reality as it is if the character is an actual person because of the personal Twitter account and the interactions with other Twitter users. Fan Fiction is a very popular form of paratext. These written texts take already created stories and characters into different situations. I first came across these when I was a much younger devout Harry Potter fan, and was eagerly awaiting the release of the next few books. Whilst trawling the internet I came across what I thought was a sneak preview of the next book, however what I got was a poorly written account of what Hogwarts would be like if it were a school for sexually confused and frustrated homosexual wizards.
Similar to paratext is the concept of the 'open product', this means that something could start off as a game or a book book however will transform itself to fit different audiences. It usually does have an beginning, middle and an ending like any usual narrative, however it usually has some form of alternate ending where the ending isn't actually the ending. For example the Pokemon franchise started off as a game. You have to follow the story line, however when you think you've finished the game, you actually have to go back through the game and complete the Pokedex, where you have to capture one of each Pokemon.
In the workshop this week, we had a guest lecturer who introduced us to the idea of Augmented Reality, which had been discussed before however this time in more depth and with physical evidence before our own eyes. We were shown a smartphone app which simply needed to scan a bar code this time in a newspaper, and the images and words on the page would become 3D on your phone screen. The context we were shown was a continuing story, almost game like where you had to scan a different code every week to get the next part of the story. I can see how this would enjoyable and interesting however personally It doesn't reach to me as I prefer the old fashioned way of reading and watching films, however I can understand why someone else would be attracted to it, for the technical and new side of it.
In terms of journalism, there are already phone apps for newspapers that are literally just links and articles laid out like a newspaper on your phone. With augmented reality, the app for newspapers could be a lot more exciting and informative, in that videos and pictures can pop up which relate to a specific story. It could give you much more accurate detail in terms of location and time of events, particularly if they are near you. It could also give much faster news as breaking news headlines will be the first thing you see and it would be incredibly noticeable.
The downside to this could the continuing decline in the popularity of traditional newspapers and news delivery. Also as mentioned previously in my posts about digital democracy, if electricity and the internet were to be completely obliterated, the new mainstream way of giving and receiving news and information would be no more, and with the assumed destruction of everyday newspapers, there would be no way of getting out news and information.
References/Read More:
Genette, Gerard. Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation and http://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/node/50663
More on augmented reality: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/augmented-reality
http://www.howstuffworks.com/augmented-reality.htm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/mediamonkeyblog/2013/apr/23/independent-plus-media-monkey
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