Building a Communication Model amongst the Blind: An Ethnographic Study in the Blind Rehabilitation Center ‘Wyata Guna’, Bandung, Indonesia

Abstract

The reality of blindness is a unique phenomenon rarely studied in the discipline of communication. It is consequential in the absence of a special communication model for the blind. This research reveals the phenomenon and constructs a communication model amongst the blind. The qualitative research with this ethnographic tradition was conducted at the Blind Rehabilitation Center (it will hereafter be abbreviated as BRC) Wyata Guna, Bandung, West Java, Indonesia. The results show that the blind people only rely on verbal or vocal communication and nonverbal communication in the form of touch, both in sending and in receiving messages to and from their other visually challenged. The blind’s touch communication is determined by three goals, i.e. touch for mobility, touch as a friendship expression and a romantic touch for those who are dating their fellows. This research results in the communication model that exists amongst the blind as an effort to fill the void of communication models that are dominated by models with the perspective of communication of physically normal people. The model shows the dynamic of communication amongst the blind by maximising their sense organs of hearing, touch, smell and taste.