"New Media" as a college degree may seem too broad or too narrow, but is it really the name of the program that signifies all it does? Is it really the title of something that contains all the ins and outs of the program dictating what is taught? Sure, the name should have some relevance, but what's the big deal?
There's two different kinds of web design in my mind. There is the visual layout, the pretty side. Then there's the structure, the underlying map. To combine the two gets tricky, as they mentioned in the AIGA article, but to separate them is trickier still. The visual side of web design is what I tend to think Graphic Designers do. The structure, coding, and mapping belong to the Programmers. It is hard, I think, to excel in both. Sure, one should know about the other, so as to do their jobs more completely. But there are two positions for a reason. Two jobs, two halves to a project, two sides of the brain.
I would think that in a business setting, there would be two different people performing the two side of the equation, not one who you hope can excel at both arenas. In a school setting, sure teach both, but perhaps separately. It is hard for designers, I think, to separate themselves from the "pretty" aspect and branch out into this mathematical coding world. And probably vice versa, but who knows.
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It's definitely true that we need to at least understand the coding a bit so we can do our jobs more completely. I thought it was interesting what you said about the term new media though. I never thought of it before, but there's a lot of "broad" terms for majors out there. Maybe not as broad as this, but even psychology could be considered so. There are many types of psychology. People don't generally focus on ALL of the types. But then again, people never really have to ask psych majors "what's that?" I am thinking maybe the issue is that the TERM new media is too new itself. All the other majors seem to be commonly known words. What is biology, psychology, English, Education...everyone knows what those are.
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