The Politics of Town Hall Meetings: Analyzing Constituent Relations-in-Interaction

Author

Robert J. Green, Purdue University

Date of Award

8-2016

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Communication

First Advisor

Felicia D. Roberts

Committee Chair

Felicia D. Roberts

Committee Member 1

Joshua E. Boyd

Committee Member 2

Thomas J. Rickert

Committee Member 3

Joshua M. Scacco

Abstract

The politics of town meetings proposes that town hall meetings are institutions of representative democracy that present an opportunity for constituents to hold their elected representatives accountable in a public setting. Constituent relations-in-interaction glosses a complex set of interactional practices and procedures through which ensembles of participants bring town hall meetings, as structures of social interaction, into being. This study uses conversation analysis, the study of talk-in-interaction, to show that the politics of town hall meetings orients to three types of accountability: Interactional accountability, political accountability, and public accountability. The articulation of these accountability types provides a sense of overall-structural organization to the structure and activities giving shape to town hall meetings.

Recommended Citation

Green, Robert J., "The Politics of Town Hall Meetings: Analyzing Constituent Relations-in-Interaction" (2016). Open Access Dissertations. 764.
https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/open_access_dissertations/764