The development of sociological neo-institutionalism is hard to imagine without the contribution of John W. Meyer. In one of the most cited articles in organizational and management research, Meyer & Rowan (1977) question the conventional perspective on the organization as a goal-oriented organization and instead look behind the facade at implicit expectation structures, rituals, and decoupling. The “new” sociological institutionalism is grounded in phenomenology. It distinguishes itself from contingency models and instead emphasizes the influence of cultural expectations and norms. On a macrosociological level, Meyer is considered the founder of the so-called “World Society” research, which, in the tradition of Max Weber, examines the diffusion of global structures. For media and communication studies, neo-institutionalism represents a counterpoint to rational and functional models and emphasizes the importance of societal logics, institutional arrangements, and cultural imprints for media structures and communication processes.