This study investigates the emotional and behavioral effects of interpersonal online communication, focusing on the controversy surrounding the loosening of restrictions on human embryonic stem cell research. The issue, central to national and statewide elections in 2008, generated heated debate among candidates and voters and evoked strong emotional sentiments among partisans. Using the theory of affective intelligence, this study proposes a predictive model connecting levels of enthusiasm and anxiety with behavioral and information-seeking outcomes. Cognitive appraisal theory is also employed to provide a role for political emotion in accounting for interactive media effects. To investigate the ways that online deliberation may influence discussions surrounding stem cell research, a between-subjects experimental study was conducted that systematically varied the tone of feedback received (reinforcing or challenging) and type of interaction (synchronous or asynchronous) experienced by users. Results indicate that emotional responses play a significant role in predicting behavioral intentions arising from the user-to-user interactive experience.

This paper examines the influences that congressional staff people viewed as important in shaping legislators' voting decisions on the human embryonic stem (ES) cell research bill in the 109th Congress, the first legislation vetoed by President George W. Bush. The analysis illuminates factors that impact congressional decision making on a salient issue with a strong moral component. Constituent concerns, ideology, and a desire to make good public policy all centrally affected members' choices; however, moral overtones permeated considerations relevant to the human ES cell research question. In addition, at least three influences that directly reflect or relate to members' moral claims — religious convictions, personal connections to potential beneficiaries of human ES cell research, and moral pressure from outside interests — were important also. The analysis draws on data gathered from interviews with congressional aides.

Over the last decade, many European countries have sought to capitalize on the promising opportunities of human embryonic stem cell (HESC) research. Italy, in contrast, has renounced this line of research. HESC research is not altogether forbidden in Italian laboratories, but restricted and not supported by public investment. In this article, I seek to make sense of Italy’s stance. I argue that the politics of human embryonic stem cell research in Italy has arisen as a consequence of the reordering of Italy’s biopolitics through the ‘nationalization’ of Italian embryos. This has deprived Italian laboratories of their research material and given Italian stem cells their particular meaning.