“You sir are a hypocrite”: responses to Pence’s MLK Day tweets as attention intervention

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2018, Twitter users utilized the “retweet with comment” feature to question the authenticity of Vice President Pence’s messages. Through the use of the rhetoric of social intervention (RSI) model, this study investigates Pence’s rhetorical naming and explores intervention strategies Twitter users employed to challenge or confirm his naming. It finds that seven tactics were present in a primary attention-shift intervention which casts Pence as hypocritical. The findings suggest that Twitter enhances citizens’ democratic voice by providing a platform for people to challenge traditional political power structures. The study also contributes to understanding of political authenticity by noting one way that the public interacts with politicians online, and the scope of the RSI model is extended to social media platforms.