Background Oriented Schlieren (BOS) is an optical technique sensitive to the first spatial derivative of the refractive index inside a light-transmitting medium. Compared to other Schlieren-like techniques, BOS is more versatile and allows to capture bi-dimensional gradients rather than just one spatial component. We propose to adopt BOS for studying the capabilities of surface dielectric barrier discharges to work like plasma actuators in flow control applications. The characteristics of the BOS we implemented at this purpose are discussed, together with few results concerning the ionic wind produced by the discharge in absence of an external airflow.