Boundary Spaces

While shows like The X-Files and 24 have merged conspiracy theories with popular science (fictions), some video games have been pushing the narrative even further. Electronic Art's Majestic game was released in July 2001 and quickly generated media buzz with its unusual multi-modal gameplay. Mixing phone calls, faxes, instant messaging, real and "fake' websites, and email, the game provides a fascinating case of an attempt at new directions for gaming communities. Through story, mode of playing, and use of technology, Majestic highlights the uncertain status of knowledge, community and self in a digital age; at the same time, it allows examination of alternative ways of understanding games' role and purpose in the larger culture. Drawing on intricate storylines involving government conspiracies, techno-bio warfare, murder and global terror, players were asked to solve mysteries in the hopes of preventing a devastating future of domination. Because the game drew in both actual and Majestic-owned/-designed websites, it constantly pushed those playing the game right to borders where simulation collides with " factuality'. Given the wide variety of "legitimate' conspiracy theory, alien encounters and alternative science web pages, users often could not distinguish when they were leaving the game's pages and venturing into " real' World Wide Web sites. Its further use of AOL's instant messenger system, in which gamers spoke not only to bots but to other players, pushed users to evaluate constantly both the status of those they were talking to and the information being provided. Additionally, the game required players to occupy unfamiliar subject positions, ones where agency was attenuated, and which subsequently generated a multi-layered sense of unease among players. This mix of authentic and staged information in conjunction with technologically mediated roles highlights what are often seen as phenomenon endemic to the Internet itself; that is, the destabilization of categories of knowing, relating, and being.     

Preparing Parents for Adoption: An Agency Experience

To prepare for the complexities of family formation, 78 prospective adoptive parents participated in Pre-Adopt, a psychosocial educational orientation program offered by one private nonprofit agency. The five-session curriculum included an overview of adoption policies and procedures, discussion of the child placement process, exploration of couples' adoption concerns and expectations about child characteristics, information about adoption laws and birth-parent/child searches, and examination of anticipatory fantasies about birth parents. Program evaluation yielded statistically significant and clinically meaningful findings about changes in emotional readiness to adopt, parenting knowledge, and satisfaction with group participation, adoption policies and agency practices. Practice implications are considered.     

Flipping and ex post aggregation

We show that Bayesian ex post aggregation is unstable with respect to refinements. Suppose a group of Bayesians use ex post aggregation. Since it is a joint problem, each agent's problem is captured by the same model, but probabilities and utilities may vary. If they analyze the same situation in more detail, their refined analysis should preserve their preferences among acts. However, ex post aggregation could bring about a preference reversal on the group level. Ex post aggregation thus depends on how much information is used and may keep oscillating (“flipping”) as one keeps adding more information. Received: 16 April 2002/Accepted: 27 May 2002     

Measuring Substance Abuse Treatment Need Among Adults in Florida: A Social Indicators Approach

Determining the size and demographiccharacteristics of substance abuse populationsis extremely important for implementing publicpolicies aimed at the control of substanceabuse. Such information not only assists in theallocation of limited treatment resources bythe state, but also in the monitoring ofsubstance abuse trends over time and in theevaluation of innovative policy initiatives. Inthis study, we develop three composite measuresof treatment need. We then use these measuresto estimate treatment need for alcohol abuseand for controlled substance abuse within eachof Florida's 67 counties. This study providesan important empirical component of communityplanning, quantifying and, to a limited degree,specifying the level of need for the substanceabuse treatment of community residents. Anadditional benefit is the development of a costeffective and unobtrusive methodology fordetermining empirically when levels of need arechanging so that treatment levels can beadjusted accordingly. With proper use,policymakers can readily employ the methodologydeveloped in this study in Florida andelsewhere to make better-informed decisions inthe allocation of finite substance abusetreatment resources.