This article presents a paratextual analysis of a genre-specific case of the book publishing industry, namely that of travel guidebook publishing. Paratexts refer to all the ‘accompanying’ textual instances that gravitate around, but never completely pertain to, the ‘primary’, authorial text. In contrast to prevalent theorisations of paratexts as simultaneous hermeneutic and marketing frameworks that regulate a reader’s interpretive practices (reception) and/or media purchasing habits (consumption), I suggest that paratexts are vehicles through which media production companies engage in auto-communication, that is, self-interpret with a view to legitimating an ethical, virtuous and authentic institutional self. I furthermore suggest that a media company’s paratextual legitimation efforts unfold in reference to the genre, under the label of which its media products are produced, promoted and distributed. Genres are central to media institutions’ legitimacy, while the paratext is the principal conduit through which legitimation is conveyed.
AlacovskaA (2013) ‘Tourists with typewriters’ or ‘parachute artists’: Creative and cocreative labour in travel guidebook production. Communication, Culture & Critique6(1): 41–63.
2.
AustinLJ (1975) How to Do Things with Words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
3.
BaedekerK (1864) A Handbook for Travellers on the Rhine from Holland to Switzerland. Coblenz: Karl Baedeker Verlag.
4.
BaedekerK (1839) Belgium and Holland: Handbook for Travellers. Coblenz: Karl Baedeker Verlag.
5.
BehdadA (1994) Belated Travelers: Orientalism in the Age of Colonial Dissolution. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
6.
BielbyT WBielbyDD (1994) ‘All hits are flukes’: Institutionalized decision making and the rhetoric of network prime-time program development. American Journal of Sociology99(5): 1287–1313.
7.
BormJ (2004) Defining travel: On the travel book, travel writing and terminology. In: HooperGYoungsT (eds) Perspectives on Travel Writing. London: Ashgate, pp.13–26.
8.
BornG (2005) Uncertain Vision: Birt, Dyke and the Reinvention of the BBC. London: Vintage Books.
9.
BrienzaC (2009) Paratexts in translation. Reinterpreting ‘Manga’ for the United States. International Journal of the Book6(2): 13–20.
10.
BrunsA (2008) The future is user-led. The path towards widespread produsage. Fibreculture Journal11: FCJ066.
11.
CaldwellJ (2008) Production Cultures: Industrial Reflexivity and Critical Practice in Film and Television. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
12.
ChildressC (2013) What’s the matter with Jarrettsville? In: MoeranBChristensenB (eds) Exploring Creativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.43–68.
13.
ChristensenTL (1997) Marketing as auto-communication. Consumption, Markets and Culture1(3): 197–227.
14.
ClarkGPhillipsA (2008) Inside Book Publishing. London: Routledge.
15.
ConsalvoM (2007) Cheating: Gaining Advantage in Videogames. Boston, MA: MIT Press.
16.
CzarniawskaB (1997) Narrating the Organization: Dramas of Institutional Identity. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
17.
De ManP (1979) Autobiography as defacement. MLN94: 919–930.
18.
FroshP (2001) To thine own self be true: The discourse of authenticity in mass cultural production. Communication Review4(4): 541–557.
19.
FussellP (1980) Abroad: British Literary Traveling between the Wars. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
20.
GeertzC (1988) Works and Lives: The Anthropologist as Author. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
21.
GenetteG (1997) Paratexts: The Thresholds of Interpretation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
22.
GraingeP (2011) Ephemeral Media: Transitory Screen Culture from Television to YouTube. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
23.
GrayJ (2010) Show Sold Separately: Promos, Spoilers, and Other Media Paratexts. New York: New York University Press.
WestE (2007) When you care enough to defend the very best: How the greeting card industry manages cultural criticism. Media, Culture & Society29(2): 241–261.
43.
WinstonB (2000) Lies, Damn Lies and Documentaries. London: BFI.
44.
ZelizerB (2007) On ‘Having Been There’: ‘Eyewitnessing’ as a journalistic key word. Critical Studies in Media Communication24(5): 408–428.
