ignoring and deflecting attention is an important form of power!

The capacity to ignore informationand arguments, and the capacity to deflect attention from a potentialissue, is an important form of power. These capacities have been welldemonstrated in two fields of research—firstly, the literature on the impactof issue-framing and problem definition (Bacchi, 2009), as discussed inChapter1above; and secondly, the literature on ‘non-decisions’, whichcan be seen as the capacity to block certain interests or issues arising,whether through deliberate veto behaviour or through the latent powerof embedded routines and institutional practices (Hayward, 2006; Isaac,1987; Lukes, 2005). This deliberate ignoring or denial of key informationoccurs in the private sector as well as governmental decision-making—such as the extended attempts by the tobacco industry to downplayand discredit scientific studies linking smoking and disease (Oreskes &Conway, 2010). Governmental and private sector actors can resort to

42B. W. HEAD‘strategic ignorance’ by exaggerating uncertainties about an issue in orderto avoid accountability (McGoey, 2019).