Relying on the outcomes of an extensive digitization program, this essay aims to consider the trade press as a source for the historiography of the film industry. It does so by presenting the results of an exploratory sorting and filing of the Cinespettacolo, Cinemundus and L’Araldo dello Spettacolo periodicals in relation to the period between 1949 and 1954. While taking into consideration also the research agenda and the concerns recently introduced by the field of Production Culture Studies, the essay frames the trade press as a «relational space» gathering different interests and professional subjects involved in the film industry. More specifically, the first section outlines a classification of the aforementioned periodicals from an editorial point of view, singling out their most significant forms and functions; the second explores in greater depth the rhetoric and the modes of discourse through which, in the years following post-WWII reconstruction, said journals used to make reference to a «systemic» vision of the film industry and to a sort of «statistical reason» to classify (and tentatively shape) the development of national film production.
