Abstract

This article examines linguistic framing of Medellin as the city of the musical genre reggaeton in online media discourse, drawing on Fillmore’s frame semantics theory (1977). The most salient frames applied towards Medellin are those of centrality, home, and music, whereby the city’s global significance as a musical hub is emphasized through the terms belonging to the frame of world. The use of components from the frames of crime and drugs suggests that the drug-related past of Medellin is integrated into its new cultural profile. Another part of the new Medellin brand are the city’s residents themselves, who are credited with supporting local reggaetonero/as, and are typically referred to with overtly positive vocabulary from the frames of love, help, and home. Although some texts evoke negative stereotypes about reggaeton, the media mostly present the Medellin reggaeton scene through the frames of success, power, and business.

Highlights

  • This article examines linguistic framing of Medellin as the city of the musical genre reggaeton in online media discourse, drawing on Fillmore’s frame semantics theory (1977)

  • This article focuses on linguistic analysis of frames contained in online media discourse about Medellin as the city of reggaeton, drawing on the frame semantics theory developed by Fillmore (1977)

  • They voted him into the House of Representatives of Colombia (Cámara de Representantes) and served as lookouts to protect him from police raids (Bowley, 2013)

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Summary

Medellin and Pablo Escobar

In the English entry for Medellin in Wikipedia, Pablo Escobar is identified as one of the two ‘notable citizens’ of Medellin, alongside the first woman to earn an engineering degree in Colombia, Sonny Jiménez de Tejada (“Medellín,” n.d., “Notable citizens”). The Medellin Cartel created the first cocaine smuggling routes into the US in the late 1970s and eventually came to control most of world’s cocaine market This made Pablo Escobar one of the richest men in the world; he stayed on Forbes list of billionaires for 7 consecutive years. Numerous social projects in Medellin, Pablo Escobar gained the gratitude and admiration of the masses, which they expressed in many ways Among others, they voted him into the House of Representatives of Colombia (Cámara de Representantes) and served as lookouts to protect him from police raids (Bowley, 2013). Medellin has become a prominent cultural hub, with its most significant cultural output currently being reggaeton

Medellin and reggaeton
Methodology
Results
The city
City residents
Reggaeton
Conclusions: the new Medellin brand
Full Text
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