The role of political actors and interest groups in the policy making process has been extensively analyzed by existing research. However, we still know little about their ability to use the mass media as a political tool to make their views heard within the policy process. This paper conducts, as a preliminary step in the development of a PhD on the saliency of interest groups and political actors in EU related stories, an extensive literature review on the topic. We focus on two main questions: 1) the theoretical perspectives employed by existing research; and 2) the research design that scholars use to study media saliency of interest groups and political actors. This includes a consideration of the dependent variables used by existing research as well as methodological concerns related to the operationalization of variables. To do so, we have developed an original dataset departing from the analysis of already published research on the topic in academic journals and the identification of the most frequently cited bibliographic references. In this manner, we will have a complete perspective on how research so far has been conducted to identify those gaps that must lead new future research on this topic.