A Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Childish Gambino’s Music Video “This is America”

Castillo Acosta, María Fernanda

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OPEN JOURNAL FOR STUDIES IN LINGUISTICS (OJSL)
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2018 - Volume 1 - Number 2

A Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Childish Gambino’s Music Video “This is America”

María Fernanda Castillo Acosta * mari_fer1987@hotmail.com * ORCID: 0000-0003-0208-8571 * ResearcherID: X-4178-2018
Universidad de Guanajuato, Division of Social Sciences and Humanities, Language Department

Open Journal for Studies in Linguistics, 2018, 1(2), 57-72 * https://doi.org/10.32591/coas.ojsl.0102.04057a
Online Published Date: 30 November 2018

LICENCE: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

ARTICLE (Full Text - PDF)

KEY WORDS: multimodal discourse analysis, African American.

ABSTRACT:
The portrayal of African Americans in the United States has been approached throughout the years in different fields. Childish Gambino’s song and music video “This is America” offers an interesting view regarding gun control in the United States, African American stereotypes and their representation in mass media. In order to propose an interpretation of Gambino’s lyrics and video, I provide a multimodal discourse analysis using the visual semiotic framework (Machin, 2010) and the systemic functional linguistics (Halliday, 1978). The findings highlight the manipulated discourse that is present in the media regarding not only African Americans but other minority groups. This “new racism” (Littlefield, 2008) has an impact on the audience, which in turn perpetuates the negative ideas and stereotypes of the African American community.

CORRESPONDING AUTHOR:
María Fernanda Castillo Acosta, Universidad de Guanajuato, Division of Social Sciences and Humanities, Language Department, Lucio Marmolejo #1071, Colonia Prolongación de la Moderna, Irapuato, Guanajuato, MEXICO. E-mail: mari_fer1987@hotmaill.com.

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