What's New:

The Bloomsburg University Xi Omega chapter of Lambda Pi Eta, the National Communication Honor Society, has been named the 2019 Chapter of the Year by the National Communication Association.

Featured Student

Sydney Rimmer

My name is Sydney Rimmer, and I am currently a senior at Bloomsburg, double majoring in Communication Studies with a Leadership and Public Advocacy focus and Political Science with a Legal Studies focus, as well as a minor in Public Relations. This summer, I am beyond grateful to have participated in an internship at the Pennsylvania State Capitol in the Senate Republicans Communications Office, as it was an incredibly fulfilling experience.
The office had a group of employees designated to each area of communications. There were teams of employees for areas such as speech writing, webmasters, photography, film, social media, and others. I got to shadow and help complete assignments in each of these areas, and gain an appreciation for the importance of each specialty. This offered a unique opportunity to understand “a day in the life” of the employees in this office and their responsibilities, and it also gave me an opportunity to meet people outside of the office, and experience things many other people will never experience. Seeing the behind the scenes of these events was so interesting.
The brunt of my work was done in June, as that is when the Senate is in session and the budget is being passed. Once the budget passed, July slowed down and there were significantly less events occurring, therefore less events for me to shadow, as the Senators stay in their district offices as opposed to coming to the Capitol. This gave me an accurate representation of the job, both the hustle and bustle of June, and the relaxed nature of July.
This internship has also proven to be a vital step in my networking. I received a follow up luncheon with the lobbying firm who encouraged me to intern in the Capitol, as well as encouragement from my office to look for a career in the Senate when I graduate. I got a chance to work with several Senators, thereby networking with them, which was a personal goal of mine for the summer. Another strength of my internship was the bond I formed with my coworkers. I was the only intern in my office, however I fit in perfectly with the full time employees despite us being in all different walks of life. I had anticipated forming relationships with my coworkers, but I had not foreseen how close I would grow with them. I am so blessed to now call many of my coworkers my friends. We have spent time together in both the office, as well as our free time, and I am elated they have taken me under their wings, and I still stay in touch with many of them despite being many months post internship.
My internship was a wonderful experience, and truly turned out to be a highlight of my summer. I am able to walk away from this office confident that I completed assignments efficiently and to the best of my ability. I have grown from this experience, and I am excited to see how the things I have learned and the connections I have made will apply to my future endeavors.

Department Faculty

David Heineman, Ph.D.

Dr. Heineman’s research interests are located at the intersection of rhetorical/critical theory and new media technologies. He publishes his work across both academic and popular contexts.

Most recently, Dr. Heineman created The Pandemic Nature Project, a film that juxtaposes imagery of the natural world's calming beauty against the collective fear and social chaos sparked by the global COVID-19 crisis. Informed by a variety of contemporary autoethnographic methods, the film draws on ideas of theorists such as Jean Baudrillard and Kenneth Burke to offer audiences a framework for developing fresh perspectives about their own pandemic experiences. The film has been presented at international conferences and symposia and competitively screened at public film festivals. You can watch his presentation for the International Symposium on Autoethnography and Narrative here.

Dr. Heineman is also author of the book Thinking About Video Games: Interviews With the Experts (Indiana University Press, 2015), which combines interviews and essays to offer insights into the past, present, and future of video games, the field of Game Studies, and the video game industry. He was recently featured on NPR’s “Pop Life” podcast, discussing some of this research. He is also co-author (with Barbara Warnick) of Rhetoric Online: The Politics of New Media (Peter Lang, 2012), which considers the impact of digital technologies in both electoral politics and activist movements.

Dr. Heineman’s scholarship has focused on topics such as virtual reality, film, public memory, pedagogy, and gender. Dr. Heineman also has research interests in visual rhetoric, the rhetoric of science and technology, and narrative theory. He has published essays and other original work in scholarly journals such as New Media and Society and The Journal of Games Criticism and on popular media sites like Kotaku and The Solute. He has served as a reviewer for highly regarded journals including The Western Journal of Communication, New Media and Society, and Communication Quarterly.
Dr. Heineman teaches courses in the major such as New Media and Visual Culture, Community Leadership, Introduction to Game Studies, Rhetorical Criticism, Understanding Social Influence (rhetorical theory), Gender Issues in Communication, Persuasion in Popular Film, and Issue and Image Campaigns. He teaches introductory courses such as Communication in Everyday Life and Public Speaking and has also taught two interdisciplinary courses – The Art, History, and Culture of Video Games and Prison Scholarship (the latter of which is taught at The State Correctional Institute at Mahanoy).

In addition to his research and teaching, Dr. Heineman is active in areas of service. He has chaired the Bloomsburg University Tenure Committee and the College of Liberal Arts Curriculum Committee, served on various search and evaluation committees across campus, served as an advisor to the Lambda Pi Eta Communication Studies National Honor Society, chaired departmental program review, and is typically involved in a wide array of university, college, and departmental committees. In addition to organizing events such as public film screenings and various research symposia, he regularly gives invited lectures on campus and serves as a moderator for university colloquia.

Dr. Heineman earned his Ph.D. in Communication Studies from the University of Iowa, where his dissertation work focused on hacktivism. He earned Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees from Syracuse University’s Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies.

His website is http://www.davidheineman.net.