Chapter 12 Quiz

Select the best answer for each multiple-choice question. Short answers should be 2–4 sentences.

Question 1 Pierre Bourdieu identified three principal types of capital. Which of the following is NOT one of them?

A) Cultural capital B) Social capital C) Economic capital D) Subcultural capital

Question 2 Sarah Thornton's concept of "subcultural capital" is best defined as:

A) The amount of money fans spend on merchandise and media related to their fandom B) Knowledges, tastes, and practices that are valued within a subculture but may not be recognized as valuable in dominant culture C) The online follower count that indicates a fan's influence D) The academic credentials that fan scholars bring to fan community analysis

Question 3 According to the chapter, which form of fan capital is most readily used as a gatekeeping tool?

A) Contributory capital B) Network capital C) Knowledge capital D) Creative capital

Question 4 The "fake geek girl" trope is an example of:

A) The differential valorization of creative vs. knowledge capital B) The systematic devaluation of women's fan capital claims under higher-than-average standards of proof C) The structural advantages that women have in majority-female fan communities D) The conflict between casual and committed fan participation

Question 5 IronHeartForever's creative capital is described as "field-specific." This means:

A) Her art only depicts characters from a specific field of the MCU (e.g., only space-based characters) B) Her creative capital is high in some fan community contexts and lower in others, depending on what each community values C) She studied art in a formal educational setting D) Her work only circulates within the AO3 fan fiction platform

Question 6 Vesper_of_Tuesday has written over 2 million words of Supernatural fan fiction. Which forms of capital does this primarily represent?

A) Knowledge capital and network capital B) Creative capital and contributory capital C) Tenure capital and network capital D) Network capital and economic capital

Question 7 The "acafan's capital problem" refers to:

A) The difficulty academic fan scholars have in getting their research published in peer-reviewed venues B) The tension between academic cultural capital (generated through research) and fan subcultural capital, which can be damaged when community members learn about the research C) The fact that academics who study fandom cannot be genuine fans D) The problem of fans who claim academic expertise without formal credentials

Question 8 AO3's kudos system is described as a potentially redistributive mechanism for creative capital. Which of the following best identifies a limit of this redistribution?

A) The kudos system only works for fan fiction, not fan art or fan videos B) Discovery of works on AO3 is still influenced by social network effects and BNF follower counts, so high-readership authors still receive more kudos regardless of relative quality C) The kudos system was designed to concentrate capital in BNFs, not to redistribute it D) Kudos do not translate into any form of community recognition

Question 9 The chapter argues that subcultural capital in fan communities reproduces external social hierarchies because:

A) Fan communities are entirely separate from mainstream society and develop their own unrelated hierarchies B) The distribution of fan capital is shaped by gender, race, and class in ways that systematically advantage already-advantaged groups C) Platform algorithms directly enforce social hierarchies in fan communities D) Only fans with high economic capital can accumulate subcultural capital

Question 10 Mireille's Manila ARMY server's explicit anti-gatekeeping rules are described as:

A) Eliminating hierarchy within the server entirely B) Limiting the most harmful expressions of capital hierarchy without eliminating capital differentials C) A form of reverse gatekeeping that excludes long-time ARMY members D) Primarily symbolic gestures with no real effect on community culture

Short Answer 11 Explain the "extraction critique" that some Kalosverse members make of Priya Anand's research. In your answer, use the concept of capital conversion to explain why community members might feel that research is a form of taking without giving.

Short Answer 12 The chapter argues that "someone who has been part of the community for ten years really does have different knowledge, different relationships, and different community claims than someone who joined last week." If this is true, is all tenure-based capital inherently legitimate? Or can tenure capital be used in illegitimate ways? Give an example.

Short Answer 13 Why might the ARMY Manila server's capital economy look different from the Kalosverse's, even though both are fan communities? Identify at least two structural factors that would produce different capital economies in these two communities.

Answer Key (for instructor use)

  1. D (subcultural capital is Thornton's adaptation, not Bourdieu's original category)
  2. B
  3. C
  4. B
  5. B
  6. B
  7. B
  8. B
  9. B
  10. B

Short answers:

11: Should explain that capital conversion means using access in one capital economy (fan community membership, relationships, insider knowledge) to generate capital in another economy (academic publications, career advancement). The extraction critique identifies this conversion as unfair because Priya takes community relationships and converts them into academic benefits while the community receives no equivalent benefit. The asymmetry of the exchange — she gains career capital, they gain nothing and may feel violated — is what makes it feel extractive.

12: Should recognize that tenure does encode genuinely valuable knowledge and relationships, so some tenure capital is legitimate. But tenure capital can be used illegitimately when "old guard" members use their historical status to exclude legitimate newcomers, to resist necessary change in community norms, or to invalidate interpretations simply because they are new rather than because they are wrong. An example might be long-time fans dismissing younger or newer fans' readings as uninformed simply because those readings engage with the text in different ways.

13: Should identify at least two of: platform architecture (Reddit vs. Discord produces different interaction norms and what kinds of capital are visible); demographic composition (male-skewed vs. female-majority changes what forms of contribution are valued); source text (MCU vs. BTS — film-based vs. music-based fandom values different kinds of creative and knowledge engagement); national/cultural context (Manila server's explicitly Filipino context shapes what multilingual and cross-cultural competences are valued).