South Africa - Sharpeville Q4

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Rachel Redman

Q4) Which is more useful as evidence of what happened at Sharpeville, Source E or Source G? [7]

        Source E is written by Humphrey Tyler and is about the events at Sharpeville later on the day. Source G is a photograph of the crowds fleeing at Sharpeville and is based at the same time as Source E. Source G was taken by Tyler’s photographer so the two sources share the same provenance. In this answer, I aim to compare two sources of a different nature, a written source (E) and a visual source (G), to find out which one is more useful as evidence of what happened at Sharpeville.

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        There are useful aspects of Source E, e.g. Tyler was a journalist so it was his job to report in vivid detail. This is shown by his use of emotive and detailed language e.g. ‘One little boy had on an old black coat which he held up behind his head, thinking perhaps it might save him from the bullets.’ Tyler supports the view of a ‘massacre’, making this source biased. This is useful because Tyler would not have been biased for no reason. If he saw police shooting innocent protestors then he would want to make his article fully ...

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