User:AmberJadeOj

Critical Reflection: Media and Participation – Wikipedia Project

The campaign and movement MuteRKelly is the topic of my Wikipedia entry. My initial entry topic was Arthur L. Gwatkin. I learnt about the designer through MoDA / Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture archives. I chose to create a Wikipedia page on Arthur L. Gwatkin was because an entry does not exist for him. However, when trying to research the designer from multiple resources, I struggled with gathering information on the designer as resources were limited. I then decided to not follow through with using this as my Wikipedia entry concept.

I then decided to start producing a Wikipedia entry about famous British YouTuber Nella Rose. My initial thought with creating an entry with a YouTuber is that their content on their channel would be a vast influence on my page and I would be able to successfully complete the entry however I had trouble finding concrete resources with valuable information to create an entry. A lot of the information I collected were from a number of her YouTube videos which were not accessible for me to use as a reference, therefore my entry would not be approved by Wikipedia.

I decided to come up with a different topic for my Wikipedia entry when the information and references for my entry with Nella Rose became difficult to find with minimal results.

Because of the problems I had encountered before with my previous two attempts at my entries I decided instead of creating a Wikipedia page on a person, I could gather more information on creating a page which and relevant with today’s media.

After researching into popular movements and activist groups at the time I saw a recent movement associated the Times Up movement and #MeToo. The movement #MuteRkelly was dominant within the news and social media, yet Wikipedia did not feature an entry about it. Also, with this campaign/movement I could relate it as a digital media strategy which is an academic topic/reading within the Media and Participation module therefore following the criteria. Furthermore, by creating my Wikipedia entry on a hashtag, it gave me lots of information and knowledge to think about as a critical subject for my next Media and Participation essay.

This time I researched the movement/ hashtag into depth before I started the Wikipedia entry therefore, I could gather all of the crucial information and organise my headings for my entry as at this time during the project I had little amount of time.

The process of gathering sources and information for my #MuteRKelly entry was very accessible as it is a recent movement being currently circulated in the media, which therefore led me to creating my successful entry.

I found formatting my entry easier as I continuously wrote it. The reference citation tool also allowed me to properly format the many references I used. Uploading my reflection and submitting my entry I would say was the hardest part of the project, I feel that I did not have enough guidance even with the edit-a-thon on this so when it came to the deadline, I found it the most difficult part. Overall the project was enjoyable once I understood what I was doing.

MuteRKelly

Mute R Kelly (#MuteRKelly) is a movement and approach to have R.Kelly convicted of his sexual abuse claims and to financially end his career. The campaign was founded by Kenyette Barnes and Oronike Odeleye in July 2017, when she was informed Kelly was booked to perform at Fulton County Owned Facility in Atlanta. Oronike states “Someone had to stand up for Black women, and if I wasn’t willing to do my part — no matter how small — then I couldn’t continue to complain. It’s time for us to end this man’s career. Enough is beyond enough.”

Founding

Founders

The co-founder of the movement in 2017, Oronike Odeleye, described the campaign as “#MuteRKelly continues until the Black community has fully financially divested from the man and his music and we tackle the overwhelming issue of sexual abuse”. The Nigerian- American is an Atlanta Arts Administrator and alongside her, Kenyette Barnes, political activist and lobbyist, launched #ThumbitDown, created this campaign for users of music streaming platforms to change the algorithm of R.Kelly's songs until the stop playing.

Allegations

Over two decades R.Kelly has faced allegations including allegedly marrying, at the time, 15 year-old R&B singer Aaliyah, listing her age as 18 on the wedding certificate. The singer has also been sued and accused for supposed sex with an underage girl. On one count it is apparent he videotaped one of these encounters. The singer then went on to face more charges of underage sex charges, child porn charges and sex cult claims. The singer denies all of these allegations.

Impact

Protests

The MuteRKelly movement impact has sparked many actions after being founded. The movement has seen a number of public protests in Chicago, Atlanta, Memphis, New York City North Carolina and more. Despite the protests in some cities Kelly still performed.

However Kelly's scheduled performance was cancelled at the "Pre-Mother's Day Love Jam" at The University of Illinois at Chicago on May 5th 2018. A women's group at the university created a petition which secured 1300 signatures. Kelly then posted a video on Twitter stating "First of all, I want to apologize to all of my fans in Chicago, and basically all around the world wherever I’m performing at and they cancelled me," He then went on to say, " I don’t know why they canceled the show. I never heard of a show being cancelled because of rumors, but I guess there’s a first time for everything. So I apologize to you guys and in the meantime, I’m going to try to get to the bottom line of it, you know, as far as my lawyers are concerned, and see exactly what happened and why I was cancelled."

Celebrity Attention

The movement has sparked some celebrity attention. Some of R. Kelly's music collaborations received backlash and have been removed from streaming services as the Surviving R. Kelly documentary series aired on Lifetime in January 2019 and the #MuteRKelly movement has grown. Artists such as Lady Gaga, Celine Dion and The Pussycat Dolls have apologised and taken down their music on streaming services.

Time's Up movement released an open letter calling out Apple, Spotify, Ticketmaster, Sony and other companies to end their financial relationship with R.Kelly.

The campaign has been cited and addressed online by influential celebrities including, John Legend, Ava DuVernay, Lena Waithe and Tarana Burke.