Paratexts in Transmedial Storytelling - Blurring the line between Fiction and Reality

In my presentation I would like to elaborate on the concept of paratexts and its applicability to transmedia storytelling. The latter is a term coined by Henry Jenkins in 2006 (Jenkins 2008 [2006]). The term however goes back to Marsha Kinder and her observations on entertainment supersystems and transmedial intertextuality in the 1990s (Kinder 1991). There are many forms (and nearly as many theoretical concepts) of transmedia storytelling: transmedial spin offs; fran-chises consisting of books, films, trailers, toys, comics etc.; transmedial adaptations etc. The spe-cific form of transmedial storytelling that I want to take a closer look at is the following: one nar-rative core text is accompanied by a number of heterologous paratexts (i.e. non-narrative texts communicated via a different medium than the core text). Jonathan Gray, who, among others, transferred the concept of paratexts to other media, summa-rizes its core parameters as follows: “[T]he secret to understanding paratexts lies in working out their relationship to textuality: What is the paratext in relation to the text? How does it contribute to the process of making meaning? And how does it energize, contextual-ize, or otherwise modify textuality?” (Gray 2010, p. 23) According to that the basis of paratextual relation is intertextuality, which can be defined along the lines of Julia Kristeva’s notion and Bakh-tin’s concept of dialogism as relationality between texts: referring to other texts and at the same time transforming them. (Kristeva 1984) When it comes to transmedia storytelling the concept of paratexts is highly productive for de-scribing how meaning is created between a fictional narrative core text (the mothership Jenkins 2008 [2006], Delwiche 2017; urtext Harvey 2015 or source text Knox und Kurtz 2017) and the par-atexts surrounding it. This is particularly interesting when distinguishing intradiegetic and extra-diegetic paratexts from one another. An extradiegetic paratext is clearly situated outside the die-getic storyworld. It marks the diegesis, and with it the core text, as fictional. An example in this context would be an author speaking about his or her work in an interview. Intradiegetic par-atexts in a transmedial project, on the other hand, are texts, media products or artefacts that primarily exist inside the diegetic storyworld, but are nonetheless accessible outside the text. I would like to have a closer look at one example in the presentation, e.g. the german version of the Norwegian transmedial serial skam, whose core text is a serial on youtube, accompanied by transmedial paratexts (mainly via Instagram and WhatsApp). Thus the presentation aims at genuinely semiotic questions applied to current trans- and inter-medial phenomena. Bibliography Delwiche, Aaron (2017): Still Searching for the Unicorn. Transmedia Storytelling and the Audience Question. In: Benjamin W.L. Derhy Kurtz und Mélanie Bourdaa (Hg.): The Rise of Transtexts. Chal-lenges and Opportunities. New York/London: Routledge, S. 33–48. Genette, Gérard (1992 [1987]): Paratexte. Das Buch vom Beiwerk des Buches. Frankfurt/New York: Campus. Gray, Jonathan (2010): From Spoilers to Spinoffs: A Theory of Paratexts. New York/London: New York University Press. Harvey, Colin B. (2015): Fantastic Transmedia. Narrative, Play and Memory Across Science Fiction and Fantasy Storyworlds. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Jenkins, Henry (2008 [2006]): Convergence culture. Where old and new media collide. Updated and with a new afterword. New York: New York Univ. Press. Knox, Simone; Kurtz, Benjamin W.L. Derhy (2017): Exploring the Intersection of Transtexts and the Contemporary Sitcom. In: Benjamin W.L. Derhy Kurtz und Mélanie Bourdaa (Hg.): The Rise of Transtexts.
País: 
Alemania
Temas y ejes de trabajo: 
Transposiciones y fenómenos transmediáticos
Institución: 
University of Passau
Mail: 
amelie.zimmermann@uni-passau.de

Estado del abstract

Estado del abstract: 
Accepted
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