Paratextual Activity: Updating the Genettian approach within the transmedia turn

Abstract

Fictional transmedia universes have been the objects of communication research throughout the last ten years. There has been such a proliferation of these universes that it can be argued that a ‘transmedia turn’ has occurred in research on the narratives of the early 21st century. This has generated interest in avant la lettre transmedia universes, i.e., not only those universes created after The Matrix and The Blair Witch Project, but even those created after The Wizard of Oz and The Lone Ranger. In parallel, the phenomenon has shed new light on the theoretical bases of transmediality. This article argues that this transmedia turn has been the cause of the revitalization of the Genettian concept of paratext, an intertextual modality found in the fuzzy threshold that exists between the diegetic and non-diegetic worlds, between products and by-products, between monomedia and transmedia, between ownership and creative freedom, and between content and promotional material. This article describes and compares the modulations suffered by paratextuality through the authors who have resumed and extended the reach of the Genettian term, and illustrates them with examples taken from official paratexts of recent transmedia fictional franchises.