How do you know whose perspective your looking at from?
When analysing a source, it is helpful to know the perspective of the creator, as this helps you to accurately assess its reliability and relevance.
What is the perspective?
It is a particular attitude towards or way of regarding something; a point of view.
What are the limitations to private letters / a diary extract?
- Only gives an individual opinion, not a general view or
government perspective. - The writer may change opinion due to later events.
- May give a view not held in public.
- In a letter, the motive might be to persuade the
audience to act in a certain way.
What are the values to private letters/ a diary extract?
- Can offer insight into personal views and opinions.
- Can indicate effects of an event or era on an
individual. - Can suggest motives for public actions and opinions.
What are the limitations to novels /poems?
- Could be a “dissenting voice” (not popular opinion)
- Could exaggerate the importance of an event or
individual - Could have a political agenda
What are the value of novels/poems?
- Could inform on contemporary opinion.
- Can offer insight into emotional responses and motive
What are the limitations to Newspapers/ Television and radio reports/ Eyewitness accounts
- Could be politically influenced or could be censored by
specific governments or regimes. - Might only give an overview of the situation.
- Might only give a narrow, one-sided perspective.
- Might emphasize only a minor part of an issue.
- Note: eyewitness accounts are not useful just because
they are at an event. Each eyewitness will notice
different aspects and may miss key points altogether.
What are the values to newspapers/ television and radio reports/ eyewitness accounts?
- Can give publicly held views or popular opinion.
- Might offer an expert’s view.
- Can give insight on contemporary opinion.
What are the limitations to statics?
- The purpose of gathering particular statistics needs
considering. (could be political, economic or deliberately
distorted) - Could relate only to one location or time period.
- Correlations might be wrong. (there could be another
causal factor not included in the statistics)
What are the value to statics?
- Can offer insights, for example, into economic growth
and decline. - Might suggest correlations between indicators like
unemployment and voting patterns. - Makes analysis or results over time easier.
- Makes comparison easier.
What are the limitations to photographs?
- Cannot see “beyond the lens”
- The limited view might distort the “bigger” picture.
- Might be staged. (especially if everyone is looking at
the camera) - The purpose of the photographer is key; what did
he/she want to show?
What are the values to photographs?
- Can give sense of a specific scene or event.
- Can offer insight into immediate response to or impact
of an event on particular people or place. - Might offer information on the environment where an
event took place.
What are limitations to cartoons/paintings?
- Could be censored, so not really public opinion.
- Cartoons often play on stereotypes and exaggeration.
- Could be limited to the viewpoint and experience of the
cartoonist or artist (or the newspaper the artwork
appears in)
What are the values to cartoons/paintings?
- Can inform on public opinion. (cartoonists often
respond to commonly held views) - When governments or regimes censor the press, it can
be used to portray the government’s line.
What are the three key items you must analyse when asked about the perspective of a source?
Person.
- Who was the creator of the source?
- Gender
- Age
- Race
Position.
- What position in society did the creator have?
- Military, political, medical, government (official government documents)
- Where was she/he from? Were they European, Aboriginal or African? Does this affect the source?
- Does it contain bias?
Provenance.
- When and where was the source created?
-Is it a primary or secondary source? (if you comment on this, you MUST provide a date as well.)
- This will impact the usefulness and reliability of the source
