1. A system, comprising: a citation search and analytics engine, which in operation, retrieves from a social network a plurality of content items composed by a plurality of subjects citing a plurality of objects that fit searching criteria specified by a user; an object selection engine, which in operation, receiving a user-provided query with selection criteria including a separate media-affiliation status filter, identifies media affiliation status of the authors/subjects of the plurality of content items meeting the query selection criteria; utilizes the media affiliation status of the authors/subjects identified as a filter to select the plurality of content items and/or the cited objects such that only those items/objects for which the authors/subjects media affiliation status matches the user-provided media-affiliation status filter; provides this selection in an un-ranked search result; computes and provides aggregated metrics based on this selection; ranks this selection higher than other content items/cited objects in a ranked search result.