Digital Media Systems: Paratexts Franchises, Fandom etc.

This blog post is going to focus on how digital media have impacted upon our concepts of the media text. Media theorists have recognized that our understanding a particular text is based on its relationships to other texts. Genre and Genre conventions These involve a close relationship through concepts of producer, IPR, medium, and audience. Paratexts It involves a close relationship through marketing and other non- narrative material called 'Paratexts'. Paratexts take a text and 'surround it and extend it'. -Ownership and Control: Paratextual Analysis Paratexts surround, shape, support and provide contexts for texts'. They may change the meaning of texts, it enhances meaning and provide sedimated meanings. There are different forms of paratexts, such as Digital Paratext. . The Gameboy 'Pokemon is an example. It has a beginning and an end but it repeats, it doesnt mean the game is necessarily over. - This is a closed product the credits keep rolling. An Open product or paratext It involves story rights, story franchise, merchandising and fandom. Alternate Reality Gaming This is not really a game. ARG players are characterised by a willingness to seek out new challenges across the world wide web and beyond, it is to find anagrams in names, coded IP addresses in numbers, and to theorize about the ARG with a wider community on a forum. Gamification It involves applying game design thinking to non-game applications to make them more fun and engaging.