Narrating AI in Europe: Public Communication, Algorithmic Justice, and Democratic Inclusion

Artificial Intelligence has emerged as a defining force in contemporary European society, profoundly reshaping governance, economic structures, and social relations. While technological innovation dominates policy discourse, this paper examines how public narratives about AI actively shape European citizens' perceptions, democratic participation, and policy outcomes. Communication and sociology studies argue that public communication about AI serves as a critical site where European values, governance models, and sociotechnical imaginaries are contested and negotiated. The European Union's regulatory framework, particularly the AI Act, represents a distinctive approach to technology governance that prioritizes fundamental rights alongside innovation. However, this regulatory architecture is not merely technocratic; it embodies normative choices about what kind of digital society Europe aspires to create. Opportunities and risks in European AI communication manifest across multiple dimensions. On the positive side, the EU's emphasis on trustworthy AI and human-centric technology offers narrative frameworks that could strengthen European digital sovereignty and democratic legitimacy. Public communication initiatives that emphasize citizen participation, transparency, and accountability have the potential to foster an inclusive digital citizenship. However, significant risks emerge when AI narratives remain dominated by technical expertise, industry interests, or administrative language inaccessible to ordinary citizens. The question of algorithmic justice reveals how AI systems can amplify existing inequalities across European societies. Automated decision-making in welfare distribution, employment, education, and criminal justice disproportionately affects vulnerable populations, yet these groups often lack voice in debates about AI governance. Surveillance and digital rights constitute another critical dimension where communication strategies have profound implications. While the AI Act addresses high-risk applications including biometric surveillance, public understanding of how algorithmic systems monitor, predict, and shape behavior remains limited. The concept of inclusivity operates at multiple levels: ensuring diverse voices shape AI policy, guaranteeing equitable access to AI benefits, and preventing algorithmic discrimination. Finally, this contribution aims to argue that the approach Europe will take to communicating the impact of AI on social, public and cultural systems will significantly determine the impact these technologies could have on democratic empowerment and technocratic control, on social equity or the worsening of inequalities, on citizen action or the expansion of surveillance. To avoid risks and threats to democratic stability, more democratic and inclusive approaches to communicating the future of AI in Europe need to be developed. Hence the call to strengthen interdisciplinary collaboration between communication scholars, policymakers, technologists and civil society. Such an approach is essential to build a sustainable socio-technical imaginary that reflects European values and enables active and informed digital citizenship in the algorithmic era.