"Paparazzi" deals (on the surface) with the pressures of being a celebrity. The New York Times explains: "'Paparazzi'" is a love letter from camera to subject but stops short of admitting that the affection runs both ways." The paparazzi (the word comes from Paparazzo, a character in an Italian movie) are those odious freelance photographers who make their living chasing around celebrities, snapping candid shots they can sell them for big bucks to gossip-hungry magazines and websites like TMZ and US Weekly. Many celebrities have a severe love-hate relationship with the paparazzi: on the one hand, all that exposure can be necessary to sustain pop superstardom, but on the other hand, all that exposure can be embarrassing, or incriminating, or just deeply destructive to any attempts to live life like a normal human being.
The nonstop exposure inherent in a world dominated by the paparazzi means that Lady Gaga is, effectively, always on stage. She never gets to take off the mask of her artistic persona; she never gets to stop being Lady Gaga to enjoy a few minutes as plain old Stefani Germanotta
In a recent interview with the UK Independent, Gaga explains and perhaps even embraces the consequences of 24/7 celebrity: "If her every moment is a performance," writes journalist Fiona Sturges, "then the paparazzi are her enablers, instantly beaming images of her around the world. Since her rise to fame, barely a day has passed without Gaga appearing in the papers buying fish 'n' chips in a fluorescent leotard or stepping out for the night in her PVC cat suit…Put on a baggy sweater and you could lose them, I say.
The lyrics can also be interpreted When we fall in love, after all, don't we all fall into something like the role of the paparazzi, chasing after the objects of our affection just like the celebrity photographers chase after the stars. Interpreted this way, the entire song can be seen as an allegory for the larger struggle of loving something that pushes you away.
Sources:
http://www.shmoop.com/lady-gaga-paparazzi/meaning.html
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