The paratext of digital documents

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to provide a discussion on how to apply Genette's concept of the paratext to analyze digital documents. The article argues that the concept, despite its shortcomings, is useful because it gives us the terminology to analyze elements often ignored and overlooked.Design/methodology/approachBy taking Gérard Genette's concept of the paratext as point of departure, the paper focuses on three controversial issues in the scholarly work about paratext and digital documents: the division of paratext into peritext and epitext, the explosive growth of paratext and the question of authorization of text and paratext.FindingsQuestions related to the spatial division of the paratext into peritext and epitext, the difficulty of where to draw the line between text and paratext and the question of authorization are not new for digital documents but did already occur in the analog world. Even if many decisions like what to include and what to exclude in an analysis are left to the researcher, this does not mean that Genette's concept is unsuitable for digital documents. On the contrary, the concept gives us the terminology to analyze elements of often ignored and overlooked, also for digital documents.Research limitations/implicationsAs a scholar in the humanities the author can only relate to and therefore analyze what the author can experience and observe on screen level.Originality/valueIn providing a discussion of digital documents and some of the controversial issues discussed by other researchers, this article shows the relevance of Genette's concept, also for our work with digital documents.