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Hannah Dirks and Mallary Ray

Dr. Kehren
HIS 404 Historical Geography
April 2017
2 Minute Speech Dirks and Ray
Hello, good afternoon, Im Mallary Ray, and Im Hannah Dirks and today will be covering

three major points from the project. Today the focus is on clarifying the topic, then examine the

research question, then giving you an overview of the artifacts that will be analyzed throughout

this project. As you can see, the focus is on the explanation of SNL and its connection to the

2016 presidential election.

At a loss at what to cover through this project, this topic came to mind completely by

chance, one night in early February SNL was on and Melissa McCarthy's was on screen giving a

hilarious portrayal of Sean Spicer. After viewing this comedic masterpiece the question that came

to mind was if SNL could be seen to influence how Trumps administration was being viewed.

Along with this a more compelling question surfaced could viewing SNL influence the way the

general public voted. After consulting with Mallary and discussing the hilarity of SNL and its

portrayals of the 2016 presidential candidates did the realization came of the mutual admiration

shared for SNL. Thus the brainchild for this compelling research project was born.

Currently the working title is Saturday Night Live: A Comedic Geopolitical Perspective

to the 2016 Election Season. Now that you know the working title you can further clarify and

understand what the project will be focused on. The topic that is under discussion is how SNL

engaged in portraying political candidates from the 2016 election, and how this reflected

elements of geopolitical/geographical issues that have been studied thus far in class. Overall

through the study of SNL the aim is to discover if SNL portrayals of the 2016 presidential

candidates influenced peoples political schema and voting decision.

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The sources that are up for examination through the research range from primary sources

to secondary sources. The primary sources intended for use vary from SNL archives, to

interviews from both the cast members and the presidential candidates. Overall the key artifact

that will be under analysis is the SNL footage from both the past and present and how they

choose to portray presidential candidates. That being said the secondary sources that are up for

exploration range from Time, Rolling Stone, Forbes, Entertainment Weekly, New York Times,

and NPR.

In conclusion, the final project will be a digital exhibit where you can go on a virtual

exploration of how SNL affected voter decisions in the 2016 election. Thanks for listening, have

a good day, and does anyone have any questions?