Abstract:
As a result of various attempts tried by humans to communicate throughout history, several methods of communication
emerged in different eras. Among them, the newspaper was the first communication medium that began as a mass
media in the Middle Ages that could communicate to many people at the same time. The British introduced the
newspaper to Sri Lanka in the 19th century. Although the first print medium started in English, from 1840 onwards
newspapers began to be published in local languages, and by 1860s several local Buddhist and Hindu printed
publications had started. The Muslims, who were the third major indigenous community in the country, published two
publications in the years 1869 and 1873, but they disappeared within a short time. The first successful newspaper
started by the Muslim community is the Muslim Nesan newspaper, which started in 1882 and continued till 1944. And
it was published under different editors from time to time until 1944. It is the earliest pioneer newspaper that started
from the Muslim community in this country and was published for a longer time. Siddi Lebbe, a national hero, was
the founding editor of the Muslim Nesan newspaper. This research aims to identify the nature of the Muslim Nesan
newspaper, the objectives of publishing the newspaper, and the characteristics of its contents during the period of
Siddi Lebbe's editorship. Data was collected under the method of literature review and content analysis. The selfanalysis method was employed to analyze the data. Accordingly, the Muslim Nesan newspaper has been identified as
a newspaper that fulfills the basic features of a modern successful newspaper, and its contents of it were targeting
reforming the Muslim community as other communities did at the time.
