Strategic Ignorance
10 items
Cross-Axis Analysis of 22 Notes / Structural Patterns in Ignorance Production
A cross-axis reading of the 22 research notes (coding: 7 axes) accumulated in the Agnotology Lab. Top mechanisms: attention-control / silence-structuring / doubt-manufacturing. Actors: institution dominates with 15 notes. powerDirection: top-down accounts for 18 notes. The next research agenda emerges from both the strong biases and the blank spots.
The Statistical Absence of Femicide (The Structure of Deaths That Cannot Be Counted)
The category 'femicide' does not exist in Japan's official statistics. The phenomenon of women being killed on the basis of gender-based discrimination is occurring, yet no framework exists to measure it. This article uses an agnotological perspective to analyze how the absence of statistics renders a social problem effectively nonexistent.
The Monthly Labour Statistics Scandal and the Reproduction of State Ignorance — When the Numbers 'Did Not Exist'
The systematic falsification of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's 'Monthly Labour Survey' revealed in 2018 was not a mere survey error. The core of the problem lies in the 'structure of ignorance' that allowed the misconduct to go undetected for nearly twenty years. This article analyzes the mechanisms through which strategic ignorance was produced around national statistics.
Selective Description in Educational Curricula and the Filtering of Knowledge
What is taught determines what remains unknown. The selection, exclusion, and reduction of content in Japan's educational curriculum is a product of political and social dynamics. This article analyzes the mechanisms through which ignorance is produced via schooling, using the framework of agnotology.
"I Have No Recollection" — The Institutionalization Mechanism of Political Memory Denial
In Japanese politics, the response 'I have no recollection of that' recurs across parliamentary testimony and records-disclosure proceedings. This is not a matter of individual memory loss; it is a practice of institutionalized ignorance deployed to evade accountability. This essay analyzes the denial of political memory through the framework of agnotology, revealing its mechanisms and functions.
From 'Merchants of Doubt' to 'Captors of Regulation' — Reading Big AI's Regulatory Capture through 27 Mechanisms
Birhane et al. (2026, FAccT'26) present a taxonomy of 5 categories and 27 mechanisms of Big AI's regulatory capture. This synthesis integrates that taxonomy into ISVD Agnotology Lab's 7-axis coding framework, tracing how the doubt-manufacturing tactics perfected by tobacco, oil, and pharmaceutical industries have transferred to the AI sector. Drawing on empirical data of 100 articles, 249 cases, and 11 dominant narratives, the article reads the contemporary form of the infrastructure of ignorance production.
The Doubt Manufacturing Industry — The Sixty-Year War of Tobacco and Climate
This case study analyzes sixty years of history in which the tobacco and fossil fuel industries systematically 'manufactured doubt' against scientific consensus. From the fact that the same group of scientists and the same strategic patterns were repeatedly employed, 'doubt manufacturing' is theorized as a foundational mechanism of ignorance production.
Why Predatory Business Endures — Structural Analysis of Converting Information Asymmetry into Profit
Real estate, insurance, telecommunications, financial products — this case study analyzes how predatory business models exploit the information-poor through the agnotological concept of 'complexity weaponization.' Why can businesses intentionally complicate information to convert consumers' 'not knowing' into profit? An anatomy of the cross-industry exploitation model that persists across sectors.
The Inhibitory Effect of Strategic Ignorance in EBPM — How 'Pretending Not to Know' Distorts Policy
Applying Linsey McGoey's strategic ignorance theory to Japan's EBPM promotion, this analysis examines the structural mechanisms by which evidence is not reflected in policy despite its existence. It reveals the structure of intentional ignorance behind rhetoric such as 'insufficient data' and 'still too early.'
Research Framework of the Agnotology Lab — An Inductive Coding Framework
From the perspective of agnotology, this note presents an inductive coding framework for multidimensional analysis of the 'production of ignorance.' Moving beyond conventional domain-based classification, a seven-axis tagging system structures research notes and allows cross-disciplinary patterns to emerge from the data.