The advancement of technology has brought massive changes in society. Technology has enabled a platform named social media which allows people to connect and communicate with a lot of people instantly. The amount of information that travels through technology also increases hugely. At the same time, social media also influences some phenomena that usually occur when people interact, such as emotional blackmail. Emotional blackmail is a social phenomenon in which someone use fear, obligation, or guilt, to threaten other people to do what he/she wants. Emotional blackmailers use the relationships that have been built as a weapon to manipulate their victims.
This study argues that social media, providing convenience and ease of use, has made emotional blackmail phenomenon more severe than before. In particular, this study employs social capital theory in exploring this phenomenon This study aims to figure out how social capitals that are formed in social media, affect the degree of emotional blackmail on the platform itself. An online survey with respondents of international students was conducted in order to obtain data for this study.
Our results show that frequent social media consumption is associated with higher emotional blackmail. Furthermore, three dimensions of social capital are able to decrease the emotional blackmail perceived by users. In addition, we also found that strong ties (structural dimension) has moderating effects on the relationship between social media consumption, relational dimension, cognitive dimension, towards emotional blackmail.
Our results suggest that users of social media should spend their resources (time, energy, and money) with the purpose to enrich their social capitals. Stronger social ties, social trust, and shared language are three aspects that can hinder and reduce emotional blackmail. We may conclude that building social ties is a very useful and beneficial activity to do on social media.

1. ABSTRACT I
2. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT II
3. TABLE OF CONTENTS III
4. LIST OF TABLE VI
5. LIST OF FIGURES VII
6. CHAPTER I – INTRODUCTION 1
6.1.1 RESEARH BACKGROUND 1
6.1.2 RESEARCH MOTIVATION 4
6.1.3 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY 6
6.1.4 RESEARCH QUESTION 7
7. CHAPTER II – THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 9
7.1 EMOTIONAL BLACKMAIL 9
7.2 SOCIAL CAPITAL THEORY 12
7.2.1 Structural Dimension (Strong Ties) 14
7.2.2 Relational Dimension (Trust) 15
7.2.3 Cognitive Dimension (Shared Language) 16
7.3 SOCIAL MEDIA CONSUMPTION 17
7.4 SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING 17
7.4.1 Components of Subjective Well-Being 19
7.5 TRUST IN SOCIAL MEDIA 20
7.6 PERCEIVED STRESS 21
8. CHAPTER III – METHODS 23
8.1 THEORETICAL MODEL 23
8.2 HYPOTHESES DEVELOPMENT 25
8.2.1 Hypotheses for Direct Effects 25
8.2.1.1 Relationship between Trust in Social Media and Social Media Consumption 25
8.2.1.2 Relationship between Trust (Relational Dimension) and Emotional Blackmail 25
8.2.1.3 Relationship between Cognitive Dimension (Shared Language) and Emotional Blackmail 26
8.2.1.4 Relationship between Social Media Consumption and Emotional Blackmail 26
8.2.1.5 Relationship between Emotional Blackmail and Perceived Stress 27
8.2.1.6 Relationship between Emotional Blackmail and Subjective Well-Being 27
8.2.2 Hypotheses for Moderating Effects 28
8.2.2.1 Hypotheses for Moderating Role of Strong Ties (Structural Dimension) 28
8.2.3 Control Variables: Age 29
8.3 DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURES AND SAMPLE CHARACTERISTICS 30
8.4 MEASURES 33
8.4.1 Strong Ties 33
8.4.2 Shared Language 33
8.4.3 Social Trust 33
8.4.4 Trust in Social Media 34
8.4.5 Emotional Blackmail 34
8.4.6 Stress Level 34
8.4.7 Subjective Well-Being 35
8.4.8 Social Media Consumption 35
8.4.9 Age 35
8.5 CONSTRUCT VALIDATION 36
9. CHAPTER IV – DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS 41
9.1 STATISTICAL TECHNIQUES AND ANALYTIC STRATEGIES 41
9.2 CORRELATIONS OF CONSTRUCTS 41
9.3 HYPOTHESES TESTING 42
9.3.1 PLS SEM analysis 42
10. CHAPTER V – FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 47
10.1 FINDINGS 47
10.1.1 H1: Trust in social media will increase social media consumption 47
10.1.2 H2: Social trust will decrease emotional blackmail 48
10.1.3 H3: Shared language will decrease emotional blackmail 48
10.1.4 H4: Social media consumption will increase emotional blackmail 48
10.1.5 H5: Strong ties negatively moderates the relationship between shared language and emotional blackmail 49
H6: Strong ties negatively moderates the relationship between trust and emotional blackmail 49
10.1.6 H7: Strong ties negatively moderates the relationship between social media consumption and emotional blackmail 50
10.1.7 H8: Emotional blackmail will increase perceived stress 51
10.1.8 H9: Emotional blackmail will decrease subjective well-being 51
10.2 CONTRIBUTIONS 52
10.3 MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS 54
10.4 LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH 55
11. REFERENCE 57
12. APPENDIX 65

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