Claiming a readership of 26,000, Z Magazine is a radical political monthly published by Z Communications, which also controls the leftist clearinghouse website Z Net, the video production company Z Videos, and the Z Media Institute that provides "classes in alternative media, mainstream media, organizing skills, and radical theory, strategy, and vision."  All these "Z" entities operate under a tax-exempt foundation, the Institute for Social and Cultural Change (ISCC), which also controls South End Press, Alternative Radio, and the "progressive speakers and artists agency" Speak Out!

Founded in 1987 by Michael Albert and Lydia Sargent (two Noam Chomsky acolytes who today control ISCC and in 1977 co-founded South End Press), Z Magazine and its related "Z" entities were named for the conspiracy-insinuating 1969 movie "Z" (which was produced by the leftist Greek-French filmmaker Constantinos Gavras, a.k.a. Costa-Gavras). Z Magazine describes itself as a publication "dedicated to resisting injustice, defending against repression, and creating liberty." Moreover, it "sees the racial, gender, class, and political dimensions of personal life as fundamental to understanding and improving contemporary circumstances."

The Z Magazine sister website Z Net says it has 300,000 visitors per week and 165,000 who receive its emailed news updates. This vast website mirrors leftist articles from around the world, displaying those that are current each week, arranging them by topic categories. It gives special attention to what is being said by Noam Chomsky, Susan Sontag, Leslie Cagan, Barbara Ehrenreich, Howard Zinn, Tom Engelhardt, John Pilger, Arundhati Roy, Ward Churchill, C. Clark Kissinger, Naomi Klein, Michael Ratner, Norman Solomon, Tim Wise, and Howard Zinn, among others. The works of a number of these authors are also featured in Z Magazine, which archives its past articles online. 

Like Z Net, Z Magazine is available in eleven different languages: English, Arabic, Bulgarian, Czech/Slovak, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish/Kurdish.