This study investigates the public sphere and the question of freedom, reviewing Jürgen Habermas' theory of communicative action and his revisions to the oft critiqued theory of public sphere. Furthermore, the paper presents Habermas' conception of the relationship between deliberative democracy and the demand for freedom. It then Takes up the work of Axel Honneth and the recognition paradigm in critical theory, the question of discourse ethics, and the prospects for emancipation and elimination of social pathologies offered by forms of recognition. In the same vein, Nancy Fraser wrote about the institutionalization of recognition and the relationship between cultural recognition and the equitable distribution of wealth. This paper does not draw a comparison of the three approaches mentioned, but rather reviews the evolution of the concept of systematic recognition, and the transformations of the public sphere in light of new social movements and actors who share the public sphere and share the demand for freedom.