Paratext
In a world where the TV screen isn’t the only screen in town, where the tablet, the smartphone and even the good old PC/laptop screen vie for attention, you could expect the TV show industry to do something to hold on to their viewers. So what did they do? Well, they’ve accepted the reality that the “two-screen experience” (or even more screens) is here to stay. TV shows in the West even ask you to “log on to the show's website and participate in real-time chats and interactive razzle-dazzle”, as this article by Thomas Doherty says. The term for this “decorative wraparound material”? Paratext. The longer definition? “The paratext is the satellite debris orbiting and radiating out from the core text: what the post-telecast chatfest Talking Dead is to The Walking Dead, what Madonna-vs.-Lady Gaga mashups are to the original music videos, what Wolverine action figures are to the X-Men franchise—what all the buzzing swarms of trailers, teasers, bloopers, tweets, swag, webisode...