Cover; Half Title Page; Title Page; Copyright Page; Contents; Introduction: This Is What Looks like Democracy; Town Meeting as Democratic Ideal; Town Hall Meeting as Debate Format; Town Hall Meeting as Constituent Service; Town Hall Meeting as Campus Spectacle; Town Hall Meeting as Corporate Event; The Future of the Town Hall Meeting; Conclusion; Acknowledgments
Summary
Jonathan Beecher Field tracks the permutations of the town hall meeting from its original context as a form of democratic community governance in New England into a format for presidential debates and a staple of corporate governance. In its contemporary iteration, the town hall meeting models the aesthetic of the former but replaces actual democratic deliberation with a spectacle that involves no immediate electoral stakes or functions as a glorified press conference. Urgently, Field notes that though this evolution might be apparent, evidence suggests many US citizens don't care to differentiate.
