The key is determining what needs to be agreed to (e.g., what side of the road to drive on) and what doesn't (e.g., who's cuter, Bebe Fav or Shana Mo?).
You need to agree on a lot of things to have a functioning society.
But, very often old media will will fabricate fake controversy about irrelevant subjects just to distract people from substantive controversy in order to disengage people from the process.