Legitimacy Criteria for Strategic Communication in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

Traditionally, strategic communication has focused on meaning-making, agenda-setting, persuasion, and reputation management. The rise of artificial intelligence (AI), especially machine-learning based profiling and prediction systems, has transformed this field radically. Communication is no longer limited to the design of a message, but increasingly takes the form of an algorithmically structured architecture of behavioral influence based on a data-driven cycle of collection, profiling, personalization, and optimization. These processes increase precision and effectiveness, but they also raise serious problems of legitimacy. The undefined and unregulated scope and limits of AI-enabled influence may lead strategic communication to move from persuasion to opaque manipulation. Here, legitimacy is used as the central analytical framework to argue that AI-powered strategic communication requires a clearly articulated normative boundary. Legitimacy is viewed as a multi-dimensional construct, encompassing legal conformity, transparency, accountability, proportionality, and the protection of fundamental rights. Drawing on three major European regulatory frameworks (the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Artificial Intelligence Act, and the Digital Services Act), this paper develops a set of evaluative criteria to assess the legitimacy of AI-based strategic communication processes. The study synthesizes regulatory principles and communication theory to distinguish between legitimate strategic influence and manipulative algorithmic intervention in democratic governance structures.