Paratexts from Cinephilia to Mediaphilia. (through Ludification Culture)

According to the most influential dictionaries, “-philia” is – among other things – “a positive feeling of liking, the experiencing of affective and emotional states”, “a feeling of affection for a person or an institution”, “or for an art expression”. But also: “a feeling of unusual or abnormal (mainly sexual) desire for someone or something.” Basically, all “-philias” convey the idea of closeness and assiduity with the object of one's affection, something that can often degenerate into excess and exaggeration (necrophilia, dendrophilia and other pathological behaviors). Do media pose the same threat? They do, according to some recent theories on the relationship between media and quality of life, which also bring up the concept of “media obesity” that should be fought by following special media diets. This is actually not a new topic for those involved in cinema studies and came up before any concerns over the risks of hyper-exposure to the media – something existing even without the occurrence of a “-philia” - ; therefore the articles tries to contextualize the problem.