#shaunlewis

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In a musical landscape often cluttered with predictable singer-songwriter fare, Shaun Lewis emerges as a refreshing maverick, gleefully shattering expectations with his latest release, SL EP2. This EP is less a collection of songs and more a bold statement about the limitless potential of musical expression. Lewis refuses to be confined by the typically delicate boundaries of the singer-songwriter genre. Instead, he weaponizes his musical versatility, transforming what could have been gentle acoustic compositions into sonic hurricanes that blend Brit-pop swagger, hard rock intensity, and an unapologetic punk attitude. The EP’s opening track, “Holding Up the World,” sets the tone […]

Breaking the Mold: Shaun Lewis Cranks Up the Volume on SL EP2 In a musical landscape often cluttered with predictable singer-songwriter fare, Shaun Lewis emerges as a refreshing maverick, gleefully shattering expectations with his latest release, SL EP2. This EP is less a collection of songs and more a bold statement about the limitless potential of musical expression. Lewis refuses to be confined by the typically delicate boundaries of the singer-songwriter genre. Instead, he weaponizes his musical versatility, transforming what could have been gentle acoustic compositions into sonic hurricanes that blend Brit-pop swagger, hard rock intensity, and an unapologetic punk attitude. The EP's opening track, "Holding Up the World," sets the tone immediately. It's a rambunctious assault of electric guitar and pulsating percussion that grabs listeners by the collar and demands their attention. The track masterfully balances nostalgic punk energy with modern rock sensibilities, creating a sound that feels both familiar and excitingly new. "Dillinger" takes the intensity even further, delivering an apocalyptic blues-metal groove that sounds like it could soundtrack the end of the world. "She Was On The Stairs" offers a different flavor, with its shimmering staccato blasts existing in a fascinating liminal space between pop and something harder, more complex. [caption id="attachment_58096" align="alignnone" width="2000"] The track masterfully balances nostalgic punk energy with modern rock sensibilities, creating a sound that feels both familiar and excitingly new.[/caption] As a delightful counterpoint, the acoustic demo of "Girl" provides a glimpse of Lewis's underlying songwriting prowess. It's a gentle reminder that beneath the walls of noise and driving energy, there's a nuanced songwriter crafting these sonic experiences. What sets Lewis apart is his refusal to be pigeonholed. He understands that a great song isn't about maintaining a specific aesthetic, but about pushing boundaries and challenging listener expectations. SL EP2 is less an EP and more a manifesto - a declaration that music should be wild, unpredictable, and unapologetically passionate. For fans of the underground English rock scene, Shaun Lewis represents something extraordinary: an artist who sees musical genres not as rigid structures, but as playgrounds for creative exploration. Listen to SL EP 2 below https://open.spotify.com/album/3NzrX1j9s1qqjjuuI9poC2?si=okYhq68YSuWuB7s-Ipl9Xw   Follow Shaun Lewis on   Spotify

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Big Data and the ethical concerns it brings - Shaun Lewis

Since the invention of the internet and the potential it has reached the last decade it has completely changed the way we look at the world. We are being overloaded with information and data everywhere we look, mostly on social media. Many researchers think that the new currency in the world is big data and that many innovations will come in due time thanks to this knowledge. This huge amount of data that is being created at ridiculous rate is allowing us to process and track information that would have been ludicrous not too long ago. Although with all this new information at the ends of our fingertips, it has raised a lot of ethical concerns in terms of privacy.

  The hash-tags on twitter are at the top of this pyramid of easily identifiable ways of tracking what people are talking about, all you have to do is look at what’s ‘trending’ to get a basic idea of what people are consuming / thinking about at this very hour.  The Hashtag has such a big use “because they are one of the most visible ‘phenomena’ on twitter and as such are much easier to access for research.” (Bruns et al, 2013) The hashtag information that is there for the taking produces wide and varied amounts of data in response to any situation whether it being a computer game, live event or movie.

From what was said above marketing is obviously benefitting massively from all this online date. Companies are now just coming out with a unique hashtag and requesting you to post it if you like their brand or want to win free stuff.  Facebook and all sorts of websites now are also making companies “pay per click for the advertisements they display, therefore they predict which ad you’re more likely to click on.” (Siegel, 2013). Now on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube now the only advertisements that show up are products I’m generally interested in and would actually click on if it was a sale or something of the sort.

Unfortunately big data and privacy do not work hand-in-hand and do not work together at all. Huge amounts of personal data are being collected by many statistic agencies and social networking companies to determine your demographic information and internet activity such as liking, commenting and sharing.

Research is not always a terrible thing for society; it essentially shows us that our every move on the internet is being watched. The ethical morals that surround big data are always going to be ever –changing and not at all a topic we can collectively agree upon,   but that doesn’t mean it’s going to stop happening.

References

Bruns, Axel. 2013. “Follower Accession: How Australian Politicians Gained their Twitter Followers.” Mapping Online Publics Blog, July 8. Accessed February 4, 2014.

Siegel, Eric. 2013. “Introduction – The Prediction Effect.” In Predictive Analytics, 1-16. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons Inc.

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The Way We Communicate is Ever Changing - Shaun Lewis - N8297762

With how New Media has grown over the past it is amazing to look back and see where we once were. Our language has changed so drastically that people wouldn’t be able to read half the text messages that are sent these days with a dictionary to look them up. Words such as lol, brb, FYI and ;) have taken over what essentially is everyday conversation. Over the past decade or so it’s clear that the primary ways in which we communicate with one another have changed drastically and technology has become almost domesticated by its own users (Baron, 2008). Texting and emails are the basics of how we communicate now from organizing events to ‘catching up’ to breaking up with your partner; the bond we make with another human being is slowly breaking. We’ll now dive a bit deeper to see what some of the latest language inclusions are.

One of the biggest new developments to catch on in texting and emails the last few years is describing what sort of mood you are in by typing icons together to form a facial expression. The word ‘‘emoticon,’’ a construction of the words ‘‘emotion’’ and ‘‘icon,’’ refers to graphic (Skovholt, 2014). Emoticons are an essential part of communication and have been created out of need for understanding the other receiver of text. The emoticons exploded onto the scene late 2012 as Apple included emoticons into the IOS 6.0 update for free of charge (Wolfe, 2012). That’s not to say they weren’t big before but since close to everyone in first world countries own an IPhone people started to use and send them at a rapid rate.

I’ve never been a big fan of it but the hashtag has now become a standard inclusion on close to every Facebook post I read. Hashtags are commonly used to mark a tweet as being relevant to a specific topic and make it more easily discoverable to other users (Bruns, 2013). The hashtag was created by Twitter and is now being used on every sort of social media such as Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr. It has since become a very poplar way of getting a good laugh as the users use it as a form of social humour.  It has also been other in comedy skits as its taking the milkie out of people that overly use it, such as Jimmy Falon’s “#Hashtag” video that’s gone viral. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57dzaMaouXA)

  These are just two of the creations that new media technologies have created and its clear to see that its working very much in supply and demand. As the new media technologies continue to evolve so will our language and with that the way we communicate with one another. So is this new way of communicating with each other through text hindering or aiding the way language that is being used all around us? #Youdecide :)

References:

Baron, Naomi. 2008. “Ch 1: Email to Your Brain: Language in an Online and Mobile World.” In Always On: Language in an Online and Mobile World, 3-10. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Bruns, Axel., (2013). Chapter 2 : Structural Layers of Communication on Twitter pp. 15-28. New York: Peter Lang

Skovholt, Karianne, Anette Grønning and Anne Kankaanranta. 2014. “The Communicative Functions of Emoticons in Workplace E-Mails: :-).” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication.

Wolfe, Bryan M. 2012. “Apple says goodbye to third-party Emoji apps.” Accessed April 13, 2014 http://appadvice.com/appnn/2012/11/apple-says-goodbye-to-third-party-emoji-apps

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Jobs have changed - Week 5 Blog - Shaun Lewis

Over the past decade the internet age has dramatically changed the way we view and connect with the world. Our jobs have had so much change that it’s hard to keep up with everything that’s going on.

A famous sociologist Manuel Castells states about informational economy “An economy in which sources of productivity and competitiveness for firms, regions, countries, depend more than ever, on knowledge, information, and the technology of their processing.” (1999, 400) So now that information and knowledge have become the key factors of what comprises our work it is a very important aspect of this informational economy.

Over recent years there has become a blurring of lines through what used to be standard practice at work, which was dreading to go to work and that you couldn’t wait to get home. Now work places are trying to keep their employees at work and enjoying it.

A great example of this blurring of lines and showing how the work force is changing is at Google. Any kind of labour or non-labour activity, everything happens at Google, you basically don’t have to leave the office and that’s the kind of mentality that Google is trying to achieve, getting it instilled in their workers, getting them really involved and into the company and making them want to be there.

Work is now seen as fun, flexible, adaptable, enabling, empowering and participatory in this new media landscape. So anyone can work, including what couldn’t be done before which was mother’s working from home. This is seen as an equalizing force getting women and people with disabilities into the work force and making money.

Gamification has become huge over the last few years as companies are putting free products out there for users to play so they can relay information back to their servers. Google doodle has become a great way for Google to communicate with their users and produce something different. Whether it is a playable game such as Pac-man or a painting on January 26th for Australia day it’s something relevant that people really engage with.

Audiences are now being used as a commodity and Fuchs states it best “ Users who upload photos and images, write wall posting and comments, send email to their contacts, accumulate friends or browse other profiles constitute an audience commodity that is sold to advertisers.” (Fuchs 2014, 107) User activity and creativity is now exploited through a collection and targeted advertisement. The commodity is then sold to advertisers and is constantly exposed to commodification, which is infiltrating market logic and top-down power.

In conclusion as talked about in the examples previously stated the work place is changing as people have to committed at what they love to achieve any sort of self-harmony in their life and that users are being exploited in more user friendly ways that they might not even know it’s happening. New media has now become the biggest part of our life and continues to grow everyday.

References:

Castells, Manuel. 1999. “An Introduction to the Information Age.” In The Media Reader: Continuity and Transformation edited by H. Mackay and T. O’Sullivan, 398 – 410. London: Sage Publications

Fuchs, Christian. 2014. “The Power and Political Economy of Social Media.” In Social Media: An Introduction, 97 – 125. London: Sage Publications