Be Our Guest or Welcome Foolish Mortals? Disney’s Invitation to Play and the Delusion/Illusion of Hyperreal, Immersive Documents

This paper playfully appropriates the metaphor of delusional states to frame a discussion of hyperreal documents present in Disney theme parks and resorts. A brief overview of the literature on delusion in individuals transitions into the collective formation of positive illusions to introduce the concept of play. The conceptual framework of play culture, or ludics, is presented to understand cultural production and meaning, which is further described in relation to theme park design and the negotiation of theme park experiences. This discussion is situated in document theory to explicate the intentionality of theme park designers and the indexicality of park guests. Aspects of theme park experiences as document transactions are elucidated in alignment with document phenomenology, touching on the implications for interpreting meaning and authenticity in environments characterized by hyperreal simulacra. The paper ends with an outline for a research agenda involving Disney theme parks, document phenomenology, and immersive documents

Implications of Knowledge Organization Systems for Health Information Exchange and Communication during the COVID-19 Pandemic

This article aims to review the important roles of health knowledge organization systems (KOSs) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Different types of knowledge organization systems, including term lists, synonym rings, thesauri, subject heading systems, taxonomies, classification schemes, and ontologies are widely recognized and applied in both modern and traditional information systems. Apart from their usage in the management of data, information, and knowledge, KOSs are seen as valuable components for large information architecture, content management, findability improvement, and many other applications. After introducing the challenges of information overload and semantic conflicts, the article reviews the efforts of major health KOSs, illustrates various health coding schemes, explains their usages and implementations, and reveals their implications for health information exchange and communication during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some general examples of the applications, services, and analysis powered by KOSs are presented at the end. As revealed in this article, they have become even more critical to aid the frontline endeavors to overcome the obstacles due to information overload and semantic conflicts that can occur during devastating historic and worldwide events like the COVID-19 pandemic.</p