Hajar Farouq Salloum

Topic: Governing Democratic Autonomy in the Age of Algorithmic Attention

Objective: To critically examine how algorithmic information flows may influence cognitive autonomy and the conditions for democratic deliberation. The project draws on Habermas’s theory of deliberative democracy and philosophical accounts of autonomy to identify when and how recommendation systems may support or undermine democratic reasoning. It reviews current policy frameworks, including the EU AI Act and Digital Services Act, to assess how autonomy and deliberative integrity are protected, and conducts interviews with citizens to explore their lived experience of algorithmic mediation and information overload. Outcome: A policy brief and a conceptual framework identifying ways to preserve cognitive autonomy in AI-mediated information environments.