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The paratext of digital documents

Roswitha Skare (Department of Language and Culture, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsoe, Norway)

Journal of Documentation

ISSN: 0022-0418

Article publication date: 17 December 2020

Issue publication date: 18 February 2021

583

Abstract

Purpose

The 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/approach

By 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.

Findings

Questions 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/implications

As 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/value

In 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.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the reviewers for their comments.

Citation

Skare, R. (2021), "The paratext of digital documents", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 77 No. 2, pp. 449-460. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-06-2020-0106

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited

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