Elective qualifications – a flexibilisation model for media occupations in times of rising complexity and shorter innovation cycles

The media landscape has been characterised by increasing digitalisation and by networking of production since the mid-1990s. The resulting diversity of production routes, output channels and products has led to a significant increase in training contents which can no longer be mapped within the scope of mono-structured occupational profiles. The development of the elective qualifications model has produced a structure which is able to depict these changes whilst also creating different specialisation profiles . Elective qualifications were first used as an instrument of flexibilisation when the occupation of designer of digital and print media was updated in 1998. The present article describes the development of this training occupation down to the present day and highlights the merits and challenges associated with the use of elective qualifications.