ABSTRACT
Ignorance does not change in itself, but it interacts with a series of social processes. This suggests that the problem of ignorance and change should be approached through an interactional framework. The chapter adopts this research principle while also making the point that the interactional approach looks differently depending on the domain taken into account and the forms of knowledge that occur specifically in relation to it. It extends the sociological exploration of the modality of presenting the crisis in the academic research by adding two more fields: media and public policy. The analysis shows how these two domains are depicted with distinct opportunities and roles with regard to change of ignorance in the context of crises: media – opportunity to raise awareness; public policy – opportunity for policy change. The two domains are also linked with specific forms of knowledge: media – framing and legitimation/pre-legitimation; public policy – framing and learning. The chapter shows that the ignorance-related effects that are abstracted indicate particular modes of analysis, with some of these effects being comparable between the two domains, which allows us to draw a more general dynamic that is at play.
