Introduction

MIGRAINE is an acronym for Media Language, Ideology, Genre, Representation, Audience, Institution, Narrative and Economical. These are they key media concepts behind a piece of media.

The MIGRAINE acronym is related to context – this is the social, political and economic circumstances behind a film and its themes, plot and characters.

Social Context

This is the Ideology part of MIGRAINE. Social Context is when you take influence from society. This could be in the form of Cultures, Mythology, Events and Ceremonies, Communities and Social Movements. The social context or ideology behind a piece of media could be representing an under-represented group who are part of a society or community.

The movie District 9 is an example of this, where the underlining social context presents themes of racism and social divide.

Political Context

Political context is when politics are included as themes or references in a film. Historical films like war films often have a political message behind them – for example, some movies like Top Gun are pro-war, and other movies like JoJo Rabbit show war in a negative light.

Economic Context

Economic context can be presented using economic groups, or the amount of funding available for a film.

This may be films representing poorer communities, or films which target an audience of people at different economic statuses, or that present ideas about money – like taxes or banking.

The economic context of a film can also relate to the budget the film was made on, for example, the movie Texas Chain Saw Massacre was made with a budget of $140,000 and the budget for Avatar was $237,000,000. It is the money that the film was made with and how it affected the decision-making process.

Institutional Context

The economic context for a film relates to Institution. Institution is about the conglomerates who own media and media distributors. Universal, Paramount, Warner Brothers, Disney and Sony own most of the media that releases in 2022 – wether directly or through subsidiary companies like Marvel, HBO or 20th Century Studios.

This also means that media conglomerates have a market share, meaning that they can produce content that has a certain message or subtext that influences society. They also choose which films get made and which don’t get made. Media conglomerates also produce films with marketing in mind – Toys, Games, Clothing and other merchandise that can all be sold under the name of “___ film series” (Star Wars, marvel, Pokémon, Disney princesses etc.)

Media conglomerates have theme parks like Disneyland and Universal.

Genre

Genre is made up of three parts: setting, characters and narrative.

Setting – The time and place a film is set.

Characters – A person/creature in a film.

Narrative – A story with plot points that are connected by a chain of cause and effect.

Conclusion

Considering these factors will help with writing my theory and industry blog post.