**4. Methods**

Regarding the roles of scholars in unravelling the invisibility which has been accorded to queerness, I envision the appropriation of Instagram by Nigerian non-heterosexual communities as being peculiar 'specific techniques and methods to reveal invisible, silenced and repressed knowledge' of their sexual identities ([42]: 17). Therefore, data for the study are harvested through purposively selected Instagram pages – @queer\_nigeria, @queeeringnigeria, @lgbtqnaija, @lgbtq\_nja, @lgtb.ng, and @queerasylum. These are queer positive handles that are owned by Nigerian users, although some of their posts are obviously transnational in outlook and advocacy. Because Instagram is mainly visual or graphic in orientation, ten (10) representative images are identified, extracted and subjected to analysis. I apply the tenets of Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis to the data since these images represent 'one of the semiotic systems that constitute a culture [one that is understood] by reference to its place in the social process [and] modelled as a resource for making meaning that has evolved' ([43]; cited in [44]: 3).

Ledin and Machin [45] affirm the value of subjecting the intersection of multimodality and critical discourse analysis as they attest to the need for 'clear, robust concepts [in multimodality] that can be used as part of CDA with its emphasis on digging out the discourses buried in texts to reveal (…) power relations and ideologies'. The noteworthiness of this blend of theoretical orientations is also identified by Kress and van Leeuwen [46] who draw attention to the necessity of integrating the diversity of communicative modes in linguistic analysis as they state that 'language always has to be realized through, and comes in the company of other semiotic modes', therefore 'any form of text analysis which ignores this will not be able to account for all the meanings expressing in texts'. They further submit that images "can 'say' the same things as language – in very different ways" ([47]: 50). Since the images are still, they are regarded as complete meaning-making semiotic resources alongside the texts that accompany them. This is unlike moving images that enable motion, editing, and the integration of other modes such as music.

In my analysis, I integrate Machin and Mayr [48] submission that it is only through intensive descriptive evaluation and analysis of what has been represented through semiotic values that one can reach informed conclusions about the symbolic meanings that the representation conveys. This implies that while the images are themselves directly denotative, they are imbricated with more extensive interpretations – connotation – which come from an acknowledgement of the contextual peculiarities from which they are produced. As a consequence, I embed my familiarity with the LGBTQ ecology in Nigeria in my analysis and discussion of the semiotic resources that constitute my data. I further incorporate the peculiarity of Instagram's architecture as well as the contextual realities in the Nigerian environment in subsequent discussions.
