Paratexts

In literature, paratextual elements traditionally act as thresholds between the text itself and what is beyond the text. They underline the passage from an extradiegetic level to a diegetic level and, ultimately, in the case of literature, from reality to fiction. Although this model has been articulated to apply to paper publishing, the digital sphere has demonstrated a tendency to increasingly blur the boundaries between the two levels. On the web, everything is text, or rather, more specifically, a small amount of text and an enormous ensemble of paratexts. It is indeed the paratexts that usually play an operational role: paratexts are the devices that allow us to act (change of address, page, liking content, etc.). In other words, the paratexts become the interface, a place of action, a world, or, even better, the world where we act. The paratexts then become an environment; our environment.