More and more pressure is exerted on forums and blogs to make them identify clearly whether one is dealing with advertising, personal opinions or objective facts. As everywhere, there are some black sheep or people who want to use social media for their own benefit. In order to generate more transparency, the University of Applied Sciences of Cologne executed the 2009 Social Media Study. Bloggers and forum operators were interviewed about their attitude to advertising, anonymous comments, purchased postings, press releases and the intervention of enterprises.

The study cannot confirm the impression that blogs and forums are filled with paid-for advertising postings. More than 80% of the participants state that they publish postings of their own composition. There are indeed paid-for postings, but at present they rather constitute an exception. The majority of bloggers also thinks that the independence of a blog suffers if postings are remunerated. What would hence be important for the blogger scene is to ensure as soon as possible that own and paid-for postings are clearly separated and also make a clear optical distinction so that readers can easily recognize this. Due to the rather scarce advertising revenues that hardly allow for operation on a full-time basis, income generated by paid-for postings might increase the share of blogs that are indeed operated that way.

The rather clear statement that journalists and their associations are regarded as a reason for lack of acceptance, prompts reflection as to what can be done to change this. With their associations journalists are well-placed and organized. At present it is difficult for bloggers to offer resistance because most of them are "lone fighters". In the meantime the idea of another association has indeed come up (there are already a few blog entries connected to the topic of a "blogger association"), but realization is still miles away.

Verification of new forum members or people leaving an entry on a blog is still quite unsatisfactory. More than half of the forum operators interviewed do not check new members at all. It would indeed be time-consuming but it would also be very beneficial to their reputation. More transparency as to who leaves what content with what background on the internet would be desirable.