Editorial

The first issue of for(e)dialogue is composed of a collection of papers given at the New Directions in Media Research (NDiMR) postgraduate conference in June 2015 at the University of Leicester. NDiMR is a one-day postgraduate focused conference organised by PhD students from the Department of Media and Communication. This conference has a similar aim and purpose of this journal as a whole which is to provide postgraduate students, PhD students and early career researchers with a platform and opportunity to develop and share their research and critically contribute to discussions of theory and methodology on a variety of Media and Communication issues. The NDiMR conference has been held annually since 2012, each year growing in size and attracting more delegates and presenters from across the world. However, this is the first time that some of the events’ presentation papers have been collected for a published conference proceedings

Behind The Screens Of Facebook: An Interactional Study Of Pre-Post Editing And Multicommunication In Online Social Interaction

This thesis explores the construction of posting activity within peer interactions on the social networking site, Facebook. At the heart of the thesis is an interest in how Facebook users negotiate online activities that are not possible in face-to-face, or other, communicative contexts. Two such activities are examined: pre-post editing and multicommunicating. Each of the activities explored in this thesis presents challenges to Facebook users. Users, for example, are presented with the unique, yet complex, ability to craft and re-craft their messages before sharing them with their audience as well as managing the interactional difficulties associated with engaging in multiple interactions at the same time. With such activities changing the dynamics of online interaction, this thesis explores how users utilise and manage these activities within their Facebook interactions as well as questioning the extent to which ‘interactional order’ is maintained. This thesis addresses these concerns by examining real time video recordings of four Facebook user’s interactions that were generated through the use of screen-capture technology. Informed theoretically by the work of Goffman and methodologically by conversation analysis, this thesis goes ‘beyond the screen’ to examine the maintenance of interactional order within this pre-post activity. In doing so, the thesis makes a number of original contributions to knowledge relating to the study of online communication; presenting a unique perspective on how Facebook users maintain ‘face’ in pre-post interaction, exploring the use of “simplification techniques” within multicommunication activity and contributing to existing understandings of temporal organisation within online communicative environments. The thesis also makes a series of distinctive methodological interventions; challenging existing understandings of the public/private distinction in writing on online research ethics and working through methodological challenges of using screen capture software that have not yet been confronted by scholars

The oldest and longest enduring microlithic sequence in India: 35 000 years of modern human occupation and change at the Jwalapuram Locality 9 rockshelter

The Jwalapuram Locality 9 rockshelter in southern India dates back to 35 000 years ago and it is emerging as one of the key sites for documenting human activity and behaviour in South Asia. The excavated assemblage includes a proliferation of lithic artefacts, beads, worked bone and fragments of a human cranium. The industry is microlithic in character, establishing Jwalapuram 9 as one of the oldest and most important sites of its kind in South Asia

Cenozoic climate history from seismic reflection and drilling studies on the Antarctic continental margin

Seismic stratigraphic studies and scientific drilling of the Antarctic continental margin have yielded clues to the evolution of Cenozoic climates, depositional paleoenvironments and paleoceanographic conditions. This paper draws on studies of the former Antarctic Offshore Stratigraphy Project and others to review the geomorphic and lithostratigraphic offshore features that give insights into the long-duration (m.y.) and short-term (k.y.) changes that document the great variability of Cenozoic Antarctic paleoenvironments. The lithologic drilling record documents non-glacial (pre-early Eocene) to full-glacial (late Pliocene to Holocene) times, and documents times of cyclic ice-sheet fluctuations at k.y. scales (early Miocene to Pliocene and Holocene). Times of significant change in types and/or amounts of glaciation are also seen in the offshore lithologic record (early Oligocene, mid-Miocene, early Pliocene). Seismic data illustrate large-scale geomorphic features that point to massive sediment erosion and dispersal by ice sheets and paleoceanographic processes (e.g. cross-shelf troughs, slope-fans, rise-drifts). The commonality of these features to East and West Antarctica since late Eocene time points to a continent that has been intermittently covered, partially to completely, by glaciers and ice sheets. The greatest advances in our understanding of paleoenvironments and the processes that control them have been achieved from scientific drilling, and future progress depends on a continuation of such drilling