Twitter data: what do they represent?

Scholarly research into the uses of social media has become a major area of growth in recent years, as the adoption of social media for public communication itself has continued apace. While social media platforms provide ready avenues for data access through their Application Programming interfaces, it is increasingly important to think through exactly what these data represent, and what conclusions about the role of social media in society the research which is based on such data therefore enables. This article explores these issues especially for one of the currently leading social media platforms: Twitter.