• Technology and networks are treated as active shapers of public discourse and social organization, spanning agenda-setting, medium change, and the rise of computer-mediated communities across the period [1], [3], [4], [5], [12].

• Rumor dynamics are framed as enduring social processes—production, transmission, belief, and disruption—bridging analog rumor studies with emergent digital contexts [2], [9], [15], [17], [18].

• Audience analysis emphasizes agency and sense-making amid expanding media landscapes, moving from uses-based explanations to social-construction of reality in political communication and culture [8], [10], [11], [19], [20].

• Social networks, communities, and information exchange are studied as structural and qualitative phenomena, linking social network analysis, virtual communities, and media-rich interactions [4], [12], [13], [14], [17].

• Cultural meaning, language, and discourse evolve with media ecologies and economic structures, illustrating layered effects of culture, media policy, and democratic discourse [6], [7], [16], [19], [20].