Wimal Dissanayake, a Sri Lankan writer and pioneering scholar of Asian communication theory, died Aug. 7, 2026, in Hawaii at 86. Sri Lanka’s first professor of mass communication, he founded the Department of Mass Communication at the University of Kelaniya.
Dissanayake challenged the wholesale adoption of Western communication theories in Asia. He examined classical teachings, rituals, beliefs and social norms to develop approaches rooted in Asian experience. His books included Sinhala Novel and the Public Sphere and Indian Popular Cinema: A Narrative of Cultural Change.
Born Sept. 6, 1939, in Kurunegala, Dissanayake attended Trinity College in Kandy and earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Peradeniya. He later studied at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Cambridge.
At the East-West Center in Honolulu, Dissanayake was a senior fellow and assistant director of the Institute of Culture and Communication. He edited the East-West Film Journal from 1986 to 1994, then taught at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the University of Hong Kong. From 2008 to 2011, he directed an international cultural studies graduate certificate program in Hawaii.
In 2021, the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre gave Dissanayake its Asian Communication Award for Disruptive Inquiry. His later work included the second edition of Communication Theory: The Asian Perspective, published in 2022.
