intertextuality

• describes the relationship between media products where one text references another text by reusing some its ideas and meanings.
• Our interpretation of a particular sign is shaped by our understanding of its connotation in the other text.
• Bricolage is where producers are able to construct new media texts from the bits and pieces of other texts.
• Fanfiction is a source of bricolage because the authors are stealing characters and settings from existing works of fiction to create their own stories.
• In terms of semiotics, Lévi-Strauss suggested “the first aspect of bricolage is thus to construct a system of paradigms with the fragments of syntagmatic chains”. You can then assemble new narratives and insights from these old signs.
• Homage refers to media texts which pay tribute to the original by borrowing and reworking its codes and conventions.
• A pastiche directly mimics the technical codes of the earlier work, such as the cinematography, mise-en-scène and non-diegetic sounds in film. Unlike an homage, a pastiche offers little alteration or adaption of the original material.
• A pastiche often has negative connotations, as the references are simple and obvious
• A parody is when producers exaggerate elements of existing texts for comedic effect.
• Easter eggs are when media producers hide references to other texts.
• Kristeva argued writers were always using existing codes and concepts to help construct their narratives. Some meanings and values were simply being repeated. Other signs were being transformed to communicate new insights and ideas to the reader - intertextuality
• If the connection between the reader and the author of a text is the “horizontal axis”, then the repetition and sharing of ideas should be considered the “vertical axis”. She said intertextuality was this “dialogue among several writings”.