Question

read the excerpt from \the role of social media in the arab uprisings\ by heather brown, emily guskin, and amy mitchell. now, research is emerging that reexamines in a more detailed way the role that social media played in the arab uprisings. in july 2012 a report was published by the united states institute of peace based on an extensive content analysis of bit.ly links from the uprisings in tunisia, egypt, libya, and bahrain. bit.ly links, or short urls, are predominantly used in social media such as twitter. the authors came to some conclusions that countered the initial assumption that social media was a causal mechanism in the uprisings. instead, the study suggests that the importance of social media was in communicating to the rest of the world what was happening on the ground during the how do the authors support the claim in this passage? by explaining how to use social media in the same way that protesters used it during the arab uprisings by citing a report that examines why social media sites were a causal mechanism in the arab uprisings by examining the type of web links that were generated in nations that took part in the arab uprisings by describing how social media reported on events in the rest of the world during the arab uprisings

Explanation:

The passage states that the authors reference a 2012 United States Institute of Peace report, which analyzed bit.ly links from the Arab uprisings to counter the initial assumption that social media was a causal mechanism for the uprisings. This matches one of the options directly, while other options do not align with the text: the passage does not explain using social media like protesters, focus on web link types as the support, or describe social media's global event reporting as the claim's backing.

Answer:

O by citing a report that examines why social media sites were a causal mechanism in the Arab uprisings