THE WORLD CAPITAL OF REGGAETON: VERBAL FRAMING OF MEDELLIN IN ONLINE MEDIA DISCOURSE LA CAPITAL MUNDIAL DEL REGGAETÓN: EL FRAMING VERBAL DE MEDELLÍN EN EL DISCURSO MEDIÁTICO EN LÍNEA

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.


Introducción
Within last few decades, Medellin was thrust into the spotlight of international attention for several reasons. In 1980s and 1990s, Colombian and international media described Medellin as the world's most dangerous and violent city. A name always mentioned in this context was -and still is -that of Pablo Escobar, a founder of the most powerful drug cartel in history. However, since the 2000s, Medellin has been building its cultural significance as a musical hub of Latin America and the world. In 2015, Medellin became a UNESCO City of Music due to its significant musical legacy: the city was proclaimed the Colombian capital of tango and rock, and recently it has become the world capital of reggaeton 2 .
This article examines how Medellin is linguistically framed as the city of reggaeton in online media discourse produced inside and outside of the reggaeton community. I would like to start with some basic theoretical concepts.
The term 'framing' was coined by Frederic Bartlett in 1932 and has been widely applied in the social sciences, e.g. psychology, cultural studies, sociology, and political science. While a variety of definitions of the term have been suggested, this article relies on the definition of Entman (1993), who defines to frame to mean "to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text" (p. 52). The key notions in Entman's approach to framing are the communicator, text, receiver, and culture. He suggests that, by means of framing, the author of a text -the communicator -can activate particular knowledge of a receiver and evoke associations which are often specific to a culture (1993, pp. 52-53). In this way, the communicator guides the receiver towards an intended interpretation of the text and affects the way they construct opinions about aspects of reality (Entman 1993). Different texts may frame the same reality in different ways, and depending on the type of text, framing may be applied to its textual and/ or visual content. 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). According to Fillmore, a frame is a system of linguistic choices that are linked through an associative relationship (1977). The elements of a frame are interconnected in such a way that the activation of one element retrieves the whole frame (Fillmore, 1977, p. 63).
Fillmore believes that, when processing a text, receivers are not passive recipients, but rather active participants in sense-making: they establish relations between text elements, create expectations regarding following linguistic occurrences, and fill in the gaps in already activated frames (1981). He shows that different receivers may experience the same text differently depending on their background knowledge, cultural and linguistic background, and familiarity with a corresponding discourse. As a result, it is difficult to anticipate what frames will be activated by receivers apart from those contained in the text (Fillmore, 1981). This paper therefore examines only frames that are explicitly available in the texts, not the ones that are potentially activated in the receivers' minds, or those that might be intended by the communicators.
By employing frame semantics theory to online media discourse about reggaeton in Medellin, I seek to address the following questions: what linguistic frames are activated in the data? Are elements from the frame of drugs introduced in the texts? Does other vocabulary with negative semantics appear when presenting the topic? Are Medellin and reggaeton framed differently in texts created inside and outside of the reggaeton community?
The article is structured in the following way: Section 2 gives a brief overview of the story of Pablo Escobar and his legacy in Medellin. Section 3 outlines the history of reggaeton in Medellin and mentions its key figures. Section 4 presents the data and methods. Section 5 discusses the results of the analysis of linguistic framing of Medellin. Finally, Section 6 presents conclusions and areas for future research.

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"). This reveals a strong associative link that still exists between the city and Pablo Escobar, even 30 years after his death -and there is a good reason for that.
Pablo Escobar gained worldwide infamy for founding one of the most powerful drug cartels in history -the Medellin Cartel (El Cartel de Medellín). 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.
During this period, Escobar's drug reign was marked with unprecedented violence against rival cartels, police, and government, which caused alarming homicide rates (Salazar J., 2001). Interestingly, Pablo Escobar managed to establish quite a successful political career due to a massive PR campaign that promoted his image of 'un Robin Hood paisa' [Colombian Robin Hood] ("Un Robin Hood Paisa," 2012[1983; see also Bowley, 2013). 3 Through his investments into Colombian professional football 3 The term "paisa" is actually the coloquial demonym for people of the region of Antioquia, whose capital is Medellin. The official demonym is Antioquians. [Editor's note] and 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 and reggaeton
Although reggaeton has rather diffuse temporal and geographical origins, it is believed to have emerged in the late 1990s in Puerto Rico, with considerable influences from Caribbean music and US mainstream music (Marshall et al., 2010, para. 2 Despite its international success, reggaeton is still much-criticized for its machismo and overtly sexual dance style perreo, and is often perceived as lowbrow/popular music intended mostly for youth in low-income communities (see Lundgren, 2012). However, Medellin has been changing the world's opinion on the genre by significantly increasing its visibility. Not only does the city host numerous reggaeton-dedicated events every year and have various 24-hour-a-day reggaeton radio stations, e.g. Clásicos Reggaeton 24/7, Radio Oxígeno Medellín, and Reggaeton FM Radio, but local reggaetonero/as and city residents also actively promote a positive image of reggaeton music and reggaeton culture in general.

Methodology
This study is based on two categories of data. The first category of texts stems from outside the reggaeton community, and includes articles published online in Spanish, in Colombian and international media. The selection criterion was the presence of the Reggaetonero/as are artists -composers, musicians, singers, songwriters, and producers -who create, produce, and/or perform reggaeton.

Results
The main topic of all analyzed texts is Medellin being the city of reggaeton. This topic is introduced through the following components: the city itself, its residents, reggaeton, and reggaetonero/as. The following subsections present how these four components are framed in the data.

The city
Medellin is most often portrayed as the capital of reggaeton or, more generally, urban or Hispanic music. This reference was found in different variations in all analyzed texts except for EG. Moreover, 5 out of the 6 articles contain the word capital in their titles.
This term activates the frame of centrality, and thereby points out the significance of Another frame used to refer to Medellin is the frame of travel. The use of this frame in the data is rather contradictory because different texts frame Medellin as occupying different points on the reggaeton route. For example, in EG, the city is presented as a starting point for reggaeton -its trampolín, whereas in CC -as the destination of reggaetonero/as, their punto de encuentro and destino. An interesting example of an inconsistent use of elements from the frame of travel is found in ET, which first refers to Medellin as a sitio de paso and two paragraphs later as a punto de partida.
The texts also tend to describe Medellin as the home of reggaeton and/or reggaetonero/ as. The words casa, and less often hogar and cuna, are used both in Colombian and international media (ET, BBC, CC, EP) and within reggaeton discourse (NM, MM, EG).
The word cuna appears in two texts, however, with slightly different meanings and Although both categories of data refer to the narco history of Medellin, there are significant differences in the way they do it. In EP, the frames of crime and drugs are also employed in text fragments which describe the success of reggaeton. Not only does this activate numerous negative associations related to the concept of crime, but it also extends these associations towards reggaeton and its artists. Moreover, the text establishes a direct link between reggaeton and drugs by describing this music as containing narcoestética and mensajes afines al narcotráfico. As a result, Medellin is presented as a place that retains a tradition of drugs, nowadays, however, through reggaeton.
Reggaetonero/as, on the other hand, draw a clear distinction between the city's shitty past (NM) and its current success as a musical hub. Within the reggaeton discourse, present-day Medellin is usually shown in a positive light, with particular emphasis on the city's great potential. For example, in MM, Medellin is described as the place of progreso, oportunidades, talento, and energía. The city is believed to realize its potential La capital mundial del reggaetón: El framing verbal de Medellín en el discurso mediático en línea due to the local reggaeton industry. Interestingly, reggaetonero/as see Medellin's essence in its residents, which will be discussed in the following subsection.

City residents
Residents of Medellin are featured in the majority of the analyzed texts -they are either mentioned explicitly or referred to indirectly. The reason may be that the reggaeton discourse actively promotes the idea that medellinenses have been contributing significantly to the city's successful relationship with reggaeton, especially in the very beginning when they were the first ones in Colombia to accept this genre. Another reggaetonero who credits medellinenses for his musical success is the leader of the reggaeton scene in Medellin, J Balvin. In MM, he mentions that todos los estratos sociales and all the age groups -los padres de familia, los abuelos, las abuelas -accept reggaeton in Medellin. Notably, the texts stemming from outside the reggaeton community suggest an opposing view: 3 out of 6 analyzed articles highlight that reggaeton is accepted primarily by young generations (BBC, ET, EP). EP goes one step further and argues that it is teenagers from "comunas más pobres, las mismas en las que las bandas de narcos reclutan a sus 'pela'os'" who listen to reggaeton. In this way, the text establishes an explicit link between poverty, drugs, and reggaeton. Such framing of reggaeton listeners is rather predictable because of the negative connotations this genre still carries, which will be discussed more in the following subsection.

Reggaeton
For the most part, word reggaeton appears already in the title of the respective media, which The frame of music contains, among others, the following lexemes: bailar and its derivative baile, cantar (as well as cantante, canción), disco, flow, grabar, reggaeton, ritmo, sonido, and the word música itself, along with its derivative musical. Music-related terms are in the majority of sentences, and the frame of music therefore remains active throughout the text, from the title to the last paragraph.
In the data, the frame of music interacts with various other frames, some of which are rather expected, while others are quite surprising. The most salient frame applied to characterize reggaeton is the frame of success, which includes such words as alcanzar (CC, EP), altura [colombiano] (EE), and rentable (EE). These lexemes emphasize the lucrative aspect of reggaeton and can be considered to be related to the frame of success. Not only journalists, but also reggaetonero/as themselves present reggaeton as commercialized music, which might reduce negative associations the term commercialized evokes when being applied towards art. Furthermore, the data tend to draw attention to various professionals and technological facilities which are behind popular reggaeton songs and music videos. The elements used for this purpose belong to the frame of musical production, for example: bailarín (EE, EP), Lexical analysis showed that it is common for the texts created outside of the reggaeton discourse to use negative wordings to describe the genre. This happens when journalists mention the underground past of reggaeton in Puerto Rico -when it was more explicit in its references to drugs, sex, and violence, but also when they criticize contemporary Colombian Another interesting observation concerns how reggaeton is framed by the gente de las calles de Medellín (MM). In the podcast episode "En La Ciudad del Perreo," medellinenses are invited to share their memories about the first reggaeton songs they heard. Most of them name 'old-school' songs and artists from the Puerto Rican reggaeton scene, which reveals the geographical mobility of the genre, on the one hand, and its temporal continuity on the other. The continuity of reggaeton is also referred to in ALN, namely through the use of the words acumular, ancestral, crónicas, historia, historiadores [del género], and ininterrumpido. Generally, the idea of the genre's continuity and cultural legacy is of great importance within reggaeton discourse, whereby artists' use of certain discursive strategies can be read as heritagizing strategies (see Chalk, 2020).

Reggaetonero/as
In the analyzed texts, reggaeton artists are mainly mentioned in the context of their music, and therefore, the frames applied towards them largely coincide with Words with negative meanings, on the other hand, are very rare, and in all detected cases relate to drugs. As already mentioned in 5.1., ALN and EP use the frame of drugs not only when touching upon the drug-related history of Medellin, but also when talking about reggaeton. Furthermore, both articles present J Balvin as a cabeza de cartel, which is a rather predictable metaphor considering the fact that the readers' knowledge about the Medellin Cartel has already been activated earlier in the texts.
The discourse of crime and drugs is also relevant to the story of Nicky Jam, which is brought up in EP and NM. However, in both cases, the emphasis is placed on the transformation he experienced in Medellin.

Conclusions: the new Medellin brand
This paper has shown that the most salient linguistic frames contained in the data are the frames of music, centrality, home, success, business, and the world. Components of these frames occur in texts originating from both outside and inside the reggaeton community, The use of components from the frame of crime and drugs indicates that there is still a strong association between Medellin and its drug-related past. Since this chapter in the city's history is impossible to forget or ignore, it has been integrated into the new cultural profile of Medellin, namely as a means of contrast to its present-day success. When thinking about the city's transformation, a parallel between the story of Medellin and that of Nicky Jam inevitably comes to mind. Both the city and the artist were able to overcome drug abuse and achieve musical success, which in the media is often referred to as a rebirth. The rebirth metaphor is used, for example, in the title of the documentary A New Medellín: Rebirth through Reggaeton and Nicky Jam's album Fénix.
The new urban profile of Medellin is inseparable from international recognition of local reggaeton and its artists. One of the main ambassadors for the new city brand (see Braun et al., 2013), J Balvin, created a slogan that asserts the visibility of Medellin-produced reggaeton within the popular music landscape: Made in Medellín. J Balvin uses this slogan in a variety of contexts, in his songs and as a title of his podcast of the same name (also included into the dataset), among others. The artist took the promotion of his hometown to the next level when he appeared at the Super Bowl LIV Halftime Show in February 2020 in a "Made in Medellín" hoodie.
Karol G, the most prominent female symbol of Colombian reggaeton, is notably only mentioned in 3 out of 6 texts stemming from outside the reggaeton community. This lack of acknowledgement may be due to the relative lack of visibility of women in this genre, as some scholars have posited that reggaeton has promoted gender inequalities and gender violence (see e.g. Arévalo, Chellew, Figueroa-Cofré, Arancibia-Villablanca, & Schmied, 2018). However, recently, an increasing number of female artists have started to assert their position within the male-dominated reggaeton space by subverting its machismo and representing female self-empowerment. One of these artists is la guerrera del género Karol G.
The data reveal that not only reggaetonero/as, but also city residents are actively engaged in the process of the (re)branding of Medellin. Communications about the city from both local artists and the public are likely to be significant for international audiences because they share an insider's perspective on the city. Further research could examine the strategies through which the Medellin's new image is broadcast to the outside world, with the research material including reggaeton lyrics, music videos, concerts, and reggaeton artists' activity on social media, on the one hand, and the reggaeton listeners'/city residents' online activity on the other.
Future studies could also analyze the visual framing of the city, as well as self-representations of local reggaetonero/as in Medellin-produced music videos. Preliminary analysis has shown that reggaeton music videos lay particular stress on the city's natural beauty and unique feel-good atmosphere through showing breath-taking panoramic views and distinct, vivid barrios with lively inhabitants. Many videos involve the motif of city residents as important supporters of the Medellin reggaeton scene, which is depicted, for example, through their dancing with local reggaetonero/as (e.g. Mi Cama by Karol G), or helping them to win the attention of their love interest (e.g. El Amante by Nicky Jam). Allusions to the drug-related past of Medellin might be seen in the context of the conspicuous display of material possessions of reggaetonero/as (e.g. massive jewellery and expensive cars, which are also common for narco culture (Kail, 2015, p. 36)); however, more research on this topic is needed.