  Flexible information routing fundamentally underlies the function of many
biological and artificial networks. Yet, how such systems may specifically
communicate and dynamically route information is not well understood. Here we
identify a generic mechanism to route information on top of collective
dynamical reference states in complex networks. Switching between collective
dynamics induces flexible reorganization of information sharing and routing
patterns, as quantified by delayed mutual information and transfer entropy
measures between activities of a network's units. We demonstrate the power of
this generic mechanism specifically for oscillatory dynamics and analyze how
individual unit properties, the network topology and external inputs coact to
systematically organize information routing. For multi-scale, modular
architectures, we resolve routing patterns at all levels. Interestingly, local
interventions within one sub-network may remotely determine non-local
network-wide communication. These results help understanding and designing
information routing patterns across systems where collective dynamics co-occurs
with a communication function.
